


As Fire and Gold

by Jinxed_Ink, Sitical



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Atalanta AU, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Multi, Mutual Pining, Quests, canon-typical warnings apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-24 23:28:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16649896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxed_Ink/pseuds/Jinxed_Ink, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sitical/pseuds/Sitical
Summary: Beautiful but cold, Prince Laurent of Arles has vowed to marry only the one to best him in a footrace. The winner will get his hand in marriage - and the power and influence that come with it - but the price of failure is death.The latest in a long string of suitors to attempt Laurent’s challenge and lose is Prince Kastor of Ios. Damen, desperate to save his brother’s life, travels to Arles himself to participate in the race. Once there, however, he quickly realizes that Laurent desires to marry him about as much as he desires to marry Laurent - that is to say, not at all.Rather than risk being trapped in a marriage that would make them both miserable, they agree to a different wager: if Damen wins the race, Laurent will let Kastor go, but if he loses, Damen will have to stay in Arles for a year, doing Laurent’s bidding.





	1. fleet-footed, stern-hearted

**Author's Note:**

> Huge huge thanks to the Big Bang mods and to my wonderful artist, [@sitical](http://sitical.tumblr.com)!!

The stories of prince Laurent of Arles’ beauty had spread down the Elosean sea, as far south as Ishtima, growing more and more outlandish in the telling, until any man of sense would scoff when they reached his ears. 

And yet, the stories had failed to do Laurent of Arles justice. 

He stood on the raised dais, half-shadowed behind his brother’s throne; even in the dim light, even severely pulled back, his hair gleamed like newly minted gold. His long-lashed eyes were deep-set and almond-shaped, a blue brilliant and fathomless enough to put the sea and the sky to shame. 

He was possessed of the sort of features that poets wrote epics about, the sort of features that would make Aphrodite weep in envy - his cheekbones were sharp, his brow high and smooth, his nose a gentle slope. His skin was the pure, flawless white of unclouded marble, and he had dressed himself simply, tightly laced in a dark blue jacked and pants in the northern style. 

In the opulence of the hall, he was a jewel that needed no adornment. 

Damen knelt in front of the throne in the way of supplicants, though his chin was raised, and he was looking at the prince directly, letting him see his anger and his pride. Impudence, to behave as such to a prince in his own hall, but Laurent of Arles was not deserving of courtesy. 

“I am crown prince Damianos, of Ios,” he said, pitching his voice so it would carry. “And I’ve come to accept the challenge for prince Laurent’s hand.”

Murmurs broke out in the hall, behind him. He kept his gaze fixed on the prince, as he took a few step forwards, until he was right at the edge of the dais, looking down at Damen with an arched eyebrow, a look of disgust marring his pretty features. “So many princes of Ios come to claim me, these past few weeks,” he said, his voice clear and high. It, too, was beautiful, although the words were hateful. “At least this one is not a bastard.”

Rage surged through Damen, and he had to grit his teeth against it, so that he would not say something he would regret. 

“Tell me,” Laurent went on, still in that insufferably even tone. “Would your brother’s head be an acceptable marriage gift?”

“Touch a hair on my brother’s head,” Damen said, caution forgotten, “and you will need to be carried bleeding from the wedding bed.” 

Laurent paled, flinching so imperceptibly Damen only saw it because they were so close. He had a moment to feel triumphant, before Laurent rallied. “I think that will be the case either way,” he said, coldly. “Judging by the size of you, it must be a common occurrence.”

“I am not violent to my lovers,” Damen said, flatly. As though he’d touch this wretched creature with anything less than a ten-foot pole. 

“But you’ll be violent to me.”

“You won’t be my lover.”

“No,” Laurent conceded. “I’ll be your husband. If you win, that is. If you lose, I’ll be your executioner.” 

“If I win, you’ll be the snake I let into my bed,” Damen said. 

Laurent cocked his head to the side. “You’re the one who would marry me. Why, if I’m so poisonous?”

For Kastor’s life. For his brother, he’d do this thing and more. 

“Laurent,” the king of Arles cut in, his voice level, “this has gone on for long enough. Do you accept his challenge?” He was a man of thirty-odd years, handsome, if lacking his younger brother’s unearthly beauty. He sat straight-backed in his throne, arms corded in muscle in a way that marked him as a warrior, and he had a strong, open countenance that matched the reports Damen had received of him - that he was a just, honest man, and a good king. Why he left his serpent of a brother unchecked was anyone’s guess.

“Do I have a choice?” Laurent asked, vitriol in his tone. 

Auguste just looked at him, reproachful, until Laurent sighed and lowered his gaze. “I accept your challenge,” he said; the words sounded rote in his mouth. 

“Very well.” Auguste said, turning his attention to Damen. “Since you are the second son of Ios to come to our hall for my brother’s hand, you will be given a week to prepare, in deference to your father, who knew mine, and who stands to lose you both. The race will take place on the dawn of the eight day, and will consist of three turns of the tracks. If you win, you shall have my brother’s hand in marriage. If you lose, your life shall be forfeit.” 

“In deference to my father?” Damen repeated. “Does that mean that the other challengers are not given time to train?”

“If you feel you are being given an unfair advance,” said Laurent silkily, “you are welcome to renounce the opportunity to train.”

Damen gritted his teeth. He wanted to refuse the preferential treatment, but it was not just his own life on the line - Kastor depended on him. “No,” he said, eventually, “I will accept the week, as it is my brother’s life on the line.” 

“And yours,” Laurent said, smiling.

***

“This is a fine bed you’ve made for us, brother,” Auguste said. He was pacing, still dressed in the finery he’d worn for the formal dinner, though he had taken off his crown. He’d been running his fingers through his hair; it was disturbed, golden curls tangled at his jaw. “One of Theomedes’ sons condemned by our hand, and the other at risk of sharing that same fate.”

“How have I made this bed for us?” Laurent asked. Auguste had come into his rooms as he’d been getting ready to retire, and he sat on his bed wearing next to nothing, fingers twisting in the bed-spread. _Stop it. It’s not the same._ In defiance, he raised his chin, clenching his jaw. “The rules of my challenge have always been clear, and I’ve not pushed either of them to compete for my hand. If they think a claim to an unwilling man is worth risking their lives for, that is no fault of mine.”

Auguste paused, and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are you sure they know you to be unwilling? At least one of them might’ve simply thought you discerning.”

“At least one of them did not care,” Laurent replied. 

Auguste sighed again, and then he came over to sit on Laurent’s bed, his shoulders slumped. “I just wish there was some other way to resolve this.”

“I will not let him win,” Laurent said, harshly. “I cannot. My oaths are sworn. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.” 

Auguste held up a placating hand. “I was not suggesting you should. But we can ill afford to alienate Ios.”

This was true. Of all the Artesian city-states, Ios and Arles were by far the most powerful, the first extending its influence in the south, and the second in the north, and there had always been tensions. They’d almost culminated into a war six years prior, shortly after Auguste’s ascension, over the control of the territories of Delfeur, and they’d remained high ever since.

“We can also ill afford to appear so weak that we cannot treat the princes of Ios the way we’ve been treating everyone else,” Laurent snapped. “We’re not Southerners, to bow our head to Theomedes’ yoke.”

“No,” Auguste agreed, “but there might be a third solution.”

“Such as what?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Auguste admitted, his mouth twisted into a frown. “But you’ve always been better at that sort of thing than me. You’ve been so clever at devising your challenge, I’m sure you’ll figure something out in this instance, as well.”

A very cleverly delivered threat indeed. “When I said you should improve your skills at courtly double-speak,” Laurent said, with some bitterness, “I did not mean you should employ them with me.”

Auguste pushed himself to his feet. He put his hand on Laurent’s shoulder, briefly squeezing. “Believe me, I wish I did not have to.”

***

The racing track was set up outside the city proper, near the field where the soldiers ran their drills, a little ways from the woods that flanked the northern side of Arles.

Laurent had first come to spend his hours there in his childhood, learning to race because a prince of Arles needed to be as accomplished in physical pursuits as he was in dealing with matters of state, even if he was a comfortable spare who would ideally never see the throne. In those days he’d displayed towards running as tepid an interest as he displayed towards any such discipline, be it swimming or sword-fighting or archery. 

And then there had been the funeral games at Karthas, under the unrelenting southern sun. Laurent could no longer quite recall whom they’d been in honor of, or the names and faces of all of the participants, though the games had been a grand affair, and the competitors illustrious.

He had been ten at the time, too young to take part, but Auguste had competed in all the events save for the chariot-racing and the wrestling, and he’d distinguished himself in every one. 

Save for the footrace.

Laurent had sat among the delegation from Arles, just one row higher than his parents and his uncle, with Estienne on one side and Vannes on the other. None of them had been terribly interested in the race, though Vannes had kept up a relentless stream of scathing commentary on the physical attributes of the Southern runners, which had kept Laurent entertained enough.

If he had felt something, watching the race, if his heart had sped up in his chest at the way the runners seemed to fly over the red sands, if he’d marveled at the wild grace of their movements, Laurent could not recall. 

What he could recall was that Auguste had placed in the bottom third, and that the bastard prince from Ios had been crowned in the laurels, and that, in the row below Laurent’s, Theomedes had reached to clasp Aleron on the shoulder. “Pity, for your boy,” he’d said, barely concealing his gloating tone. “It’s lucky that you have an other son. Perhaps you’ll make a runner out of that one.”

“Perhaps,” Aleron had replied, turning towards Theomedes in turn. Laurent had seen the side of his face, and the cold, dismissive smile there. “But we both know that the footrace is not where the glory’s found.” 

It had been a good rebuttal, skirting the edge of offense without plunging past it. Still, his response would’ve been different if he’d thought Laurent had half a chance to make something of himself as a sportsman, and Laurent had realized that, even at ten. He’d settled back in his seat, a leaden weight in his stomach, suddenly deaf to Vannes’ chattering. 

When they’d returned to Arles, two weeks later, Laurent had thrown himself into running with everything he had. In time, he’d come to love it. There was an unrestrained freedom in it, coupled with a sort of primal joy that had proved a refuge, in the darkest days of his life. 

Nothing and no one could touch him, when he ran. 

When he went to the racing track, the pink light of dawn bathing the spires of Arles at his back and the mountains far off in the north, and saw Damianos of Ios already there, doing laps, he felt an unaccountable rush of anger. 

He had known Damianos would be there, when he’d set off from his chambers, in a distant, intellectual way. Auguste had given him permission. It would have been foolish of him to waste the opportunity to train, not when Laurent was undefeated. Not when the price of loss was so steep. 

Yet, it still felt like an invasion to see him there, so arrogantly occupying the space as though it belonged to him. He was barefoot, his sandals discarded in the exact spot where Laurent always left his boots, and he was running fairly slowly, still testing the land. He sped up, as Laurent watched him.

He too had been at the funeral games at Karthas. He too had competed in the footrace - Laurent remembered it, suddenly. He’d been fifteen, at the tail end of a growth-spurt and gangly and graceless with it, incapable still to use his long limbs to his advantage, and he’d placed baldy, even worse than Auguste. 

At twenty-five, he’d settled in his body, for all that he’d grown into a bull of a man, broad-shouldered and tall. The day before, as Laurent had looked at him across the throne room, he’d thought, _this one might be slow_.

He’d been wrong. 

He settled his shoulder against the tree to watch, cataloguing the neat, economical movements, the fluid grace of his limbs. He saw the exact moment Damianos became aware of his presence. He startled, visibly, and his eyes came back to Laurent after he’d passed him over, but, to his credit, he did not lose his balance. 

“He deigns to rise,” he commented with an odious little smile as he slowed down and came over to Laurent’s tree. 

“I’ve been here for a while, actually,” Laurent said, careful to keep his voice mild, “But it seemed impolite not to let a guest have first use of the tracks.”

“Or perhaps you wanted a chance to gauge your opponent,” Damianos replied. “Since theno the tracks are large enough for two.”

“If you fear I may have the advantage of you,” Laurent said, leaving the shade of the tree and sauntering over to the tracks, the picture of insouciant laziness, “you are more than welcome to stay and watch my training.” He knelt to unlace his boots, his eyes lowered and intent on his task, as though Damianos were as inconsequential as a fly, even as Damianos’ eyes remained on him, intent.

He had to wonder how much of it was desire. There had been some of it in the man’ gaze the day before, but it had been tempered by a rather large amount of disgust. 

He looked up, his task done, to catch Damianos’ eyes skittering away from him. Desire, then. “I have to remove my jacket, also,” he said, sweetly, “perhaps you’d like to assist me.”

Damianos’ jaw clenched, but he moved closer. “I would be a poor guest if I refused my host assistance.”

Laurent tensed. He’d not been expecting the brute to _accept_. Still, there was little that could be done about it now, so he pushed himself to his feet and extended his arm, palm up. “Much obliged.”

Damianos took his forearm in one large palm, to steady it, while the fingers of his other hand worked on the laces at Laurent’s wrist. He was clumsy, his work slow. He smelled strongly of sweat and, underneath it, something like freshly cut grass; perhaps he’d rolled in the fields like a dog before he’d come to the racing tracks. 

The work of opening Laurent’s jacked forced them into close proximity, Damianos’ head bent and level with Laurent’s eyes, so that Laurent either had the option of looking at his hands on him, or at the side of his face, unless he wanted to close his eyes or stare in the opposite direction and make his discomfort clear. 

He had surprisingly gentle features, sharpened in concentration as they were: a soft mouth and high cheekbones, a wide nose. His eyelashes were lowered, but Laurent could still see a small sliver of his eyes - they had looked black from a distance, but up close they were a warm, deep brown, flecked with gold. 

_They are lovely_ , Laurent thought, and immediately wanted to slap himself. 

Damianos’ hands paused, and Laurent instinctively looked down, half-expecting to discover he had managed to entangle himself beyond repair. His jacket was open to his elbow, and yet Damianos’ fingers lingered, warm and heavy against Laurent’s pulse-point, the thin fabric of his shirt starkly white against them. He could feel Damianos’ gaze on the side of his face.

He jerked his hand back - too quickly - and extended the other one. This time, he closed his eyes, as Damianos’ big, careful fingers worked at the laces, occasionally brushing Laurent’s arm, a touch he could feel down to his toes, and focused only on controlling his breathing. 

“It’s no wonder you arrived so late to train,” Damianos murmured, and Laurent almost startled. 

“It does not usually take this long to dress. My attendants are a little more practiced than you.” 

“I don’t much see the point of all this clothing.”

“You wouldn’t,” Laurent said dismissively, “but that glorified handkerchief you’re wearing wouldn’t keep you warm throughout a northern winter.”

“I would have other things to keep me warm.” 

Laurent scoffed. “You overestimate yourself.”

“You’d be surprised,” Damianos said, letting go of Laurent’s arm, leaving his jacket open at both wrists and trailing laces. He reached for Laurent’s neck. 

“I can do those on my own,” Laurent said. He wanted to step back, but, ruthlessly, he suppressed his instincts and held himself firm, his chin tilted back and his eyes steady, until Damianos was the one to retreat. 

Still, it was an hollow victory, when he had to undress with Damianos’ eyes on him, following the movements of his fingers as Laurent loosened the laces at his throat, then passed them through the eyelets. Again, he had to steady himself against the desire to shy away.

Finally, it was done, and he let the jacket drop from his shoulders, onto the swaying grass. He stepped past Damianos, straight-backed, and did not spare him a glance, though he felt his gaze on him still, lingering, sweeping from his hair down to his shoulders and his waist, and then lower. 

“The great prince Damianos of Ios, struck dumb by a bit of ankle?” Laurent taunted, looking over his shoulder and catching the moment Damianos snapped out of staring at what was decidedly not Laurent’s ankle. “Though I do suppose I am possessed of extraordinarily attractive ankles.”

“Is that how you beat my brother? Was he too busy staring at your- ankles?”

Laurent bristled. “Would you like to find out?” He continued along to the track, relishing the sharpness of the grainy red sand under his feet as he stepped off the softness of the grass. “Three turns of the tracks, is it not?” he asked lightly. “I’ll even let you start with an advantage.”

“I don’t need it,” Damianos said. 

“Suit yourself.” 

Laurent walked until he was in the middle of the tracks, settling into the starting stance for a race with the fluidity borne of relentless practice, his left foot forward, his right foot backwards, his body slightly crouched forwards. After a moment, Damianos settled in beside him. 

“To the guest the honor of calling the start,” Laurent said. 

Damianos, to his credit, he did not take advantage of the option of starting before Laurent could. Not that it would have helped him.

Laurent started off slowly enough, building up a rhythm and letting Damianos run ahead of him for the time being. Three turns was plenty of time to overtake him later. 

As he ran, he did not look at Damianos. Worrying too much about your opponents was a good way to lose, in racing. Instead, he focused only on the dusty red tracks stretched out in front of him, on the rhythm of his feet as they struck the earth, on his legs and his arms and his back, as he restrained the ever-building urge to let go of everything and just run, fast as an arrow, for the sheer joy of it. 

And then, as Damianos entered into his second turn and he himself was still just halfway through the first, he did. 

There was no way to worry about the position of his body, then, or the way his feet struck the earth. He relied on instinct, and muscle-memory, built up over hours and hours of grueling training all throughout his youth, and he though only of the wind against his face, the disturbed grains of sand brushing his legs, the track a blur in front of his eyes. 

He did not know when he’d overtaken Damianos. If he saw shapes out the corner of his eyes as he ran, they might’ve been trees or rocks or people, and he attached the same significance to each of these options. 

All he knew was that, as he counted the end of the third turn and slowed to a stop, he turned to see Damianos a good few paces behind him, slack-jawed. 

“See much of my ankles?” he challenged. He was panting. 

Damianos’ mouth worked, but no words came out. 

“Have I broken you?”

“That was- fast.” 

Really, had the lumbering brute somehow expected the undefeated champion of Arles, the man who’d more than once been compared to the Cerynian Hind of Artemis, to be anything but fast? Laurent was somewhat used to being underestimated, but this was a new height.

“That is the nature of races, yes,” he said acidly. 

“You’re counting on no one ever being able to defeat you, aren’t you?” Damianos asked. His eyes were bright, and there was something searching in his expression, as though Laurent were a knot to be untangled. 

“I am counting on my looks giving out before my legs do,” Laurent replied, startled into honesty.

***

The fourth day of Damen’s stay in the palace at Arles saw him loitering outside the chambers of the crown prince.

“I really do need to speak to him,” he said, for what felt like the hundredth time, to the expressionless guards posted at their entrance. “Is he inside?”

No answer.

“If he’s not inside, I’d like to wait for him in his receiving chamber, rather than in the corridor outside his door,” Damen pressed. This was getting offensive enough that pulling rank on the guards might’ve been justifiable. 

“Stop harassing my guards,” a cultured voice said behind his shoulders. “Is there something you wanted?” Laurent added, coming into view. He was slightly disheveled, his golden hair half undone from his braid, a flush high on his cheeks. 

“I’m not harassing your guards,” Damen replied, “if anything, they are being unforgivably rude to me.”

“They are forbidding an uninvited stranger access to my chambers and refusing him information on my whereabouts,” Laurent replied, pushing past him and coming to stand in front of the door. “I dare say they’re attending to their duties.” 

He gestured with his hand, and one of the guards - a man of perhaps thirty years, with a neat brown beard, and close-cropped hair - pushed opened the door, holding it open for Laurent to step through. “Thank you, Jord,” Laurent said, lingering on the threshold, and then, to Damen: “Are you coming in or not? I was under the impression that you wanted to speak to me.”

Once they were in the relative privacy of the antechamber of Laurent’s rooms - relative because Damen had little doubt the guards stationed just outside could hear every word they spoke - Laurent turned to him, one fair eyebrow arched. “Well? What was so urgent you had to seek me out in my own rooms?”

“I’ve come to realize something,” Damen began.

“How shocking,” Laurent said. “I see how this might be an occasion worth remarking upon, but not what it has to do with me.”

“You have no desire to get married.” The realization had been surprising, even if it was obvious in hindsight - that the man that had gone to such lengths to make marriage as remote a possibility as could be conceived by the human mind desired to remain unwed. And yet, if Laurent did not desire marriage, why bother with the challenge at all? It would have been far simpler to turn down any suitor who asked for his hand. “Not just to me. You don’t wish to marry anyone.”

“No. I do not.”

“Good,” Damen said, “I dislike you intensely and have no wish to marry you, either.” 

Laurent arched a finely shaped brow. “I fail to see how to see what exactly is _good_ about this situation.”

“There’s no reason why we should risk being trapped in a marriage that would make us both miserable,” Damen replied. “Let us make my brother’s freedom alone the stakes of the race.”

Laurent was silent for a few moments, his head tilted slightly to the side. “And if I win? Do you still want to stake your life?”

Truth be told, Damen had not even considered the matter - he had no intention of losing. “If you’d be satisfied with something short of my life, I’d prefer it,” he admitted.

“For instance?” 

“I don’t know,” Damen said, a sense of unease growing, “anything you want, I suppose.”

“Anything I want,” Laurent repeated, voice gone flat with disbelief. 

“Within reason,” Damen hastened to add, “nothing that would negatively impact my kingdom, or our allies. And you’ll have to tell me now what you want if I lose, not after the race.” He was not fool enough that he’d trust this snake not to take advantage of their agreement.

Laurent looked at him for a long time, not talking, tapping the point of one finger on his full lower lip. “All right,” he said at length, “that seems fair. If you lose I want you to stay in Arles for a year, and do my bidding.”

“Your _bidding_?” Damen repeated. “I won’t assassinate anyone for you, if that’s what you’re after.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m more than capable of doing my own assassinating,” Laurent replied, coldly. 

“Then what will _doing your bidding_ constitute of?” 

Laurent gestured airily with one of his long, white hands. “This and that,” he said vaguely. “There’s a lion that’s been terrorizing our allies in Varenne. They could use a big strong brute like you to go and kill it.”

“That won’t take a year. At most, it’ll take a month.”

“Then I’ll think of something for you to do for the remaining eleven,” Laurent replied. “Do you accept or not? I’ll even give you an added incentive: even if you lose, I won’t execute your brother, and when the year is up, the two of you can leave Arles together.”

It was too good an offer to pass up. Still, Damen hesitated. “My conditions stand. I won’t do anything to endanger Ios, or any of our allies.” 

“Yes, yes,” Laurent said, waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to only endanger you. Do we have an agreement?”

***

The day of the race dawned clear and bright.

The space at the start of the tracks was already thronged with spectators - palace guards, nobles, serving girls, young mothers with their children, all pressed together and trampling the fresh spring grass. They parted for Damen when he arrived, opening up a path among them that lead directly to the place where Laurent, grain-colored head held high, waited for him.

A hush fell, the only sounds the cry of a distant bird and Damen’s startlingly loud footsteps as he approached, but Laurent did not turn, though his shoulders stiffened. Damen paused next to the tracks, and bent to remove his sandals, leaving them discarded next to Laurent’s boots. 

He took a moment to study his opponent, before he took up position. Laurent stood straight as an arrow-shaft, his hair in braids around his forehead like a golden crown, clad in a fine, translucent shirt and dark, fitted trousers, his graceful feet bare.

He turned his head slightly to the side, feeling Damen’s scrutiny on him, his pale eyes cold and glittering. “Lost your nerve?” 

“Have you?” Damen countered, stepping onto the tracks. The fine red sand stuck to the soles of his feet.

Laurent did not deign him of a response, shifting into the starting stance, his hands loose at his side and his toes poised in the sand, his long legs trembling slightly with suppressed tension. Damen took up position at his left. 

He recalled how Laurent had been, seven days before, when they’d raced each other in practice on this same sand; his golden braid streaming in the wind like a whip, the thoughtless grace of his limbs. And he recalled how he’d been afterwards, pale face pinked with exertion, something that was almost a smile hovering at his lips. He’d understood, then, why a man might risk his life for that mouth. 

Well, almost. One would still need account for Laurent’s character. 

The week before, he’d lost to Laurent, but it had not been so crushing a defeat that Damen needed to be worried - he’d stayed ahead of Laurent for almost half of the race, and he’d been training relentlessly since then. He’d win, and then he could take his brother home and leave Arles and its cold-hearted prince behind forever. 

The instant the horn that marked the start of the race was sounded, Laurent shot off like a loosened arrow, Damen scrambling at his heels. It was immediately, painfully clear that the only reason Damen had ever been ahead of Laurent in the race the previous week was because Laurent had allowed him to be there.

He was halfway through the second turn of the tracks before Damen had even finished the first, a blur of blue and gold, and the race was over almost as soon as it began, Damen a full length of the track behind him as he cleared the finishing line. 

He did not see it happen - he’d been so far behind he’d still been turned towards the opposite direction - but he heard a cheer go up among the spectators, for reasons Damen couldn’t fathom - surely the people of Arles did not love their monster of a prince. 

Perhaps they simply hated Southeners more than they did Laurent. 

Damen slowed to a standstill, not seeing the point of continuing to run when the day was already lost, and turned, approaching Laurent at a walk. 

Laurent had turned as well and stood across from him, chest heaving, sweat gleaming on his brow; he bowed, more gracious in his victory than Damen would’ve expected him to be. “A good race,” he said, voice pitched to carry, as though it had been anything but the most humiliating of defeats. 

Damen had reached him by now, and they stood close. “We both know it was not.”

Laurent lifted his chin. Some of his hair had escaped from the braid, and it clung to his forehead in golden tendrils. “It was a far better showing than what my last opponent offered.”

His last opponent had been Kastor. “We received reports that it was so close a race that you were scarcely separated by the time it takes a man to blink.”

Laurent inclined his head. “That may have been the case,” he conceded. His voice was pitched low, intimate in the space between them. “But you did not feel the need to drug me beforehand, so I would still consider you the better of the two.”

Damen recoiled. “Kastor would never-“

“Wouldn’t he?” Laurent interrupted, cool-eyed. “You’re more than welcome to ask him yourself, if you doubt my words.”

Damen’s mouth tightened.

“But first,” Laurent continued, careless, “I believe you’ve a lion to slay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter!! If you did, let me know in the comments!
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr, [here](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com)
> 
> The chapter title comes from [this](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/atalanta-2/) poem by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward


	2. the constant curse of beast and man

The lands of Varenne were beautiful: rolling hills, carpeted a brilliant green, miles upon miles of swaying grass, and then vineyards, rows upon rows of trees with gnarled trunks and bright leaves, and grapes hanging heavy from the vines, gleaming dark red, ripe and full to bursting.

All this beauty, and fifteen heads of cattle dead upon the field. The smell hit Damen’s nostrils first, sharp and violent, then he heard the buzzing off the flies, and then he saw them, their bellies slit open and their throats torn, their bodies mangled so that the yellow fat and the white bones were exposed to the summer-warm air. 

They had not been eaten. 

Damen drew close on his horse, until he was close enough to see the people clustered next to the bodies, heads bent. A small group, five people in all - a family of cowherds, perhaps. 

As he reached them, he slowed his horse to a standstill, so that he could dismount and speak to them.

“What brings you here, stranger?” asked a dark-eyed woman, lines around her mouth and her chestnut braid touched with gray. Her clothing was home-spun, her hands red and roughened from her work; for all Damen knew, it was her whole livelihood, lying dead on the ground, but she was straight-backed for all that. 

“I’m told a lion ravages this lands,” Damen said, “I’ve come to kill it.”

The woman gestured with an open palm, encompassing the ravaged cows on the ground, the blood spilled, the swarming flies. “It’s been here tonight.” 

Looking closer, Damen could see traces left by the beast’s claws, the marks of its teeth. “Lions do not kill for sport.” 

The woman spat, her hand cradled agains her chest in the sign to ward off against evil. “This one does. Kills humans, too. Geron’s boy was found dead on the field among his cattle, not a week ago.”

Among the rest of the woman’s clustered family, a maiden winced - the woman’s daughter, perhaps. She was attractive, in the uncomplicated way of those who live a simple life, her complexion pink and white as a peach’s, her face round and lovely, her eyes dark-lashed and shining.

Beside her, a young man who might’ve been the maiden’s brother snorted. “It’s just a beast. I would’ve killed it, if you’d let me try, mother.” He was younger than his sister, fifteen or sixteen, something still boyish and unformed in his features, though his shoulders were wide and he looked strong as an ox. 

“Or you could be dead, too,” the maiden said harshly, her pretty features twisted in a scowl. “And then I’d have lost you as well.”

“The king’s sent his men,” the mother said, half-turning to glare at her son. “And none of them have come back. And the king of Arles, he’s sent men too, and none of those have come back either. Cattle, we can replace. But we cannot replace you.”

The boy scowled, but he kept his peace. His mother turned back to Damen. “Are you certain you’re willing to fight that monster?” she asked, her brows drawn. 

Damen nodded. He was about to mount his horse again, intending to head for the hills, when the daughter held up a hand. “At least stay with us tonight,” she said, in a rush.

The woman’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but there was little she could do, now that the offer had been extended, not without violating the rules of hospitality. “Please,” she said, smiling tightly, “stay, and face the lion tomorrow.”

Damen, looking at the slaughtered cattle, had been about to shake his head, but then he turned his gaze to the horizon, and noticed how low the sun was, the crimson of the oncoming evening already encroaching upon the blue of the sky. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

Their house was small but clean, and their supper, which Damen shared, consisted of simple food, but hearty; thick dark bread and butter, slices of hard cheese that tasted sharp and bitter.

The maiden - Sylvie, her name was - came up to see him after he had retired to the hayloft where he was to spend the night. She carried a cup of red wine with her.

The wine had also been at the dinner table. It had tasted like vinegar, having likely been made from the dregs of a barrel destined to some finer household. Damen took a sip of it anyway, when she offered the cup to him. 

“I’ll need to be clear-headed tomorrow,” he said, as an explanation, as he put the cup on the ground.

“When you go to slay the lion?” Sylvie asked. She’d been drinking the wine, too, all through dinner, without watering it. Her cheeks were flushed.

“Yes,” Damen said.

“It killed Antoine,” she said. She did not sound drunk; her voice was even, measured. “Geron’s son. Everyone was expecting the two of us to be married by midsummer.”

“I’m sorry,” Damen offered, unsure what else there was to say.

Sylvie shrugged, though there was a tightness to the set of her mouth that belied her show of nonchalance. She came closer. She was much shorted than Damen, short enough that she had to lean on her toes and brace herself on his shoulders to kiss him. 

It was warm, a little clumsy, the taste of wine heavy on her tongue. 

Then, as abruptly as she’d initiated the embrace, she drew back. “There’s not many young men around these parts,” she said, “less still worth looking at.”

Perhaps she sought respite from her grief. Damen reached for her, gently running his fingers over her hair and her slender neck, the jut of her collarbones, the base of her round breasts where they strained against her bodice. When he let one knuckle dip inside the line of her dress, she drew back. 

“When you come back,” she said, “and the beast is slain, I could offer you much more than a cup of wine, and much more than a kiss.”

“I might not come back,” Damen replied, “could you not offer it to me now?”

She shook her head, though she was smiling. “I would need a vow of you, before I could offer that thing to you,” she said, her eyes shining, “and there’s no priests nearby.”

“A vow?” Damen prompted, though he had a fair idea of where this was leading, now.

“I’ve a saffron gown in the chest at the foot of my bed. And I’d still have a wedding before midsummer, if you would give me one.”

“I cannot,” Damen said, “I’m sorry.” He found himself longing for his home, where a careless tumble in the hay with a pretty baseborn girl would not have required negotiations more extensive than the confirmation of mutual desire. 

“Why?” Sylvie demanded, a pretty pout on her lips.

“I’m not at liberty to,” Damen said, and, because it was a more believable answer than _I’m the heir to the throne of Ios_ “I’m sworn in service to the crown prince of Arles, for the next year.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “Is he as beautiful as they say?”

“More,” Damen admitted, thinking of golden hair and skin like unclouded marble.

“And as cold?”

“That, too.”

“Perhaps love could thaw him,” Sylvie said, wistfully, as though she were regretting not being more of a runner. Laurent’s challenge, after all, was open to anyone, whether they were commoners or princes, and she might’ve won herself a handsome husband and riches untold, all at once.

“Perhaps,” Damen conceded, “though I don’t think it would. He’s ice all the way through.”

The next morning, Sylvie’s mother led him back to the field where he’d first met them. The slaughtered cattle had been cleared away, but a redness lingered to the grass, where the blood at pooled. Flies were still buzzing over those places.

“They say the lion’s made its lair in those hills,” the woman said, gesturing. 

Damen nodded, and, before he mounted his horse, he leaned down to press a few golden coins in the her hand. “Use these to buy yourself a new cow,” he said, “and if anything is left over, use it to make a sacrifice to Zeus, for my sake.”

She nodded, wide-eyed. The coins Damen had given her were Drachmas from Ios, Theomedes’ proud profile etched on one side of the gleaming metal, a roaring lion on the other, but foreign gold was still gold, and she’d closed her hand over them eagerly. “I’ll pray for your safe return,” she promised.

***

“You decided to send the heir to the throne of Ios to hunt a man-eating lion,” Auguste said, somewhat strained.

Well, very strained, if Laurent were being honest. 

“But I didn’t execute him,” he pointed out, turning a page in the report he was reading. He and Auguste had been sequestered in the library all morning, a towering stack of reports on the table between them.

Auguste just stared at him, flatly, one of his brows arched. It was a look he’d learned from Laurent, and a look Laurent deeply regretted teaching him.

“Look,” Laurent said, pushing the report away and turning his full attention on his brother. “You said _Laurent, use your astounding intellect to resolve the situation so that we don’t lose face by not honoring the terms of the challenge, but also don’t anger Theomedes by having both his sons executed_ and I did. If you have any issue with how I resolved it, you should’ve been more precise in your request.”

“What I remember saying was more akin to _You got us into this mess in the first place and you will get us out of it_.” Auguste said. “And what you seem to have done was take us from the skillet into the fire.”

“Crown prince Damianos of Ios will not be executed by our hand,” Laurent replied. “And neither will his brother. Was that not what you wanted?”

Auguste was silent for some time, during which Laurent dared to hope he would be allowed to get back to his report, and that they would perhaps be done with their work in time for lunch. Then: “The lion might still kill him.”

“Then Theomedes shall address his grievances to the lion.”

“I fear that’s not how that works,” Auguste said. “Did it _have_ to be a lion? It’s not even in Arles!”

“It’s too close to the border,” Laurent replied, “and Berenger promised that he’d cut me a good deal for some of his horses, if I could get someone to take care of the lion issue for him. And since you’ve refused to deploy the only song-worthy hero Arles has to offer-”

“That was one poem!” Auguste interrupted him. Gone was the cold-eyed king who had confronted Laurent in his chambers more than a week before; this was the brother Laurent remembered from his childhood. He was laughing, a little, as though he could not help it. “And half of it was vaguely erotic drivel about your _long, quivering thighs_.” 

“But the other half was about my heroic deeds,” Laurent pointed out. Or, more precisely, deed, singular. And it had not felt particularly heroic, when he’d stood over the centaur by that spring, his clothes torn, and the centaur’s throat torn, too, and blood pouring from it, and staining the waters red. Killing never did. “If we were to count all the poems containing vaguely erotic drivel about my long, quivering thighs towards the tally, we’d be well into the double digits.” 

“There’s more?” Auguste asked. He sounded faintly scandalized, and he sounded like he were contemplating marching out of the library and challenging all those poets to a duel. 

Laurent laughed, lightly, and forced himself to dispel his thoughts. “Yes, the one about the centaur-slaying was the only one they dared to perform in court. I’m afraid the rest are either far more explicit or nothing but open speculation about my virginity.” 

“You don’t seem to mind.”

Laurent shrugged. “It’s only talk. I wish they’d stop, if only because then the suitors might lose interest too, but it’s not worth the effort it would take.”

There was another interval of silence, during which Laurent managed to finish the report and turn to another document, this one about the state of the fields between Arles and the outpost at Chastillon, and then he felt the toe of his brother’s boot pressing into the meat of his leg. “What?” he snapped. 

“Do you want to go racing, later?”

It was a peace offering, clumsily delivered, and Laurent found himself smiling, slow and spreading.

“Horse-racing,” Auguste hastened to add. 

“You’re a terribly sore loser.”

“I am not, I used to let you win all the time when you were a child.”

“That’s not the same thing at all,” Laurent said, unable to suppress his laughter, “it’s not really losing if you’re letting it happen, everyone knows that.”

“I still had to listen to you crow about your very fast pony all the way back to the hall,” Auguste countered, “so I daresay I’ve suffered.”

Laurent laughed, and nudged his brother’s foot with his own. “Then have a footrace against me.” 

“No.”

“Sore loser.”

“There’s just no point in having a footrace against you,” Auguste insisted, “we both already know that you will win.”

“Sore loser,” Laurent repeated, still smiling widely. “You just can’t stand that there’s one physical discipline at which I’m better than you.”

***

It took Damen until the hottest hours of the day to reach the hills, and longer still to find the thin, muddy path marked by the footprints of the lion. He followed it where it led, to a shadowed opening in the hillside.

He put one hand on the sun-warmed rock at the cave’s entrance, palming the hilt of his sword with the other - he had a bow slung over his shoulder, but he wasn’t sure how narrow the cave would be, and whether there’d be room to maneuver in it. 

Inside, it was cool, and pitch-dark after a few step. _I should’ve brought a torch_ Damen thought, as he slowly made his way deeper into the cave, shoulders pressed against the rock so that he could not be attacked from behind. Later, he would not be able to tell how long he spent there, in the darkness and the cold, until a rush of warm air washed over his face, a larger space opening up in front of him. 

There was sunlight there, streaming in from some unseen opening in the ceiling, weak and pale. A woman lay on the rocky ground, naked and shivering her fair hair a sweaty tangle over her face, her eyes half-shut and her lips bloodless and pressed together. Blood marred her tawny skin, brown and brackish and drying.

She raised her head when he came in. Her eyes were wide and shining, fringed with thick, dark lashes that were wet and stuck to each other in clumps. Trembling, she extended her hand towards him. 

“Help,” she said, her voice a harsh whisper. “Water.”

Damen hurried over to kneel at her side, bringing his water canteen to her mouth. She gulped from it greedily, grasping at his wrist so that it would be steady, the strength of her grip belying her pallor and fatigue. As she drank, Damen ran his free hand down the front of her body, checking her injures. The blood was sticky, fresher than he’d thought it to be, but beneath it her skin was whole; unmarred. He felt her stiffen.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, trying to be soothing. The gods only knew what she’d been through, trapped in the lair of the lion. He raised his head. “Can you move? I have to check your back for injuries, too.” 

He was looking at her face. This was why he saw her change, saw the moment when supple flesh and dainty teeth melted into fur and fangs; when the lion took a mighty swipe at him with its talons, he was already stumbling back. 

He hit the hard ground of cave, his wrist jolting painfully. 

The lion roared. It was a great beast, easily six feet tall at the shoulder, its mane golden and wide, its bared teeth gleaming, sharp as knives. Its eyes, large and amber-colored, were all that remained of the woman it had been. 

Its advance was slow, shoulders swaying, talons ticking rhythmically on the rock, pink tongue lolling and running over its maws. Anticipating an easy meal. Damen stood; he’d die on his feet, if he had to die, and there’d be nothing easy about it. 

He drew his bow, firing two consecutive bolts into the beast’s heaving flank. They bounced, harmlessly, off its hide. Two arrows, shot at such close distance, ought to have pierced the lion’s flesh, and, if not killed it, slowed it down considerably. Yet there it stood, unarmed.

It growled, low, in its throat. It was close enough now that Damen could feel its breath on his face, and he tossed away the bow, drawing his sword instead. 

Naked steel did not work any better than the arrows had.

It shook off the blow Damen landed against its shoulder, and ducked its head, jaws snapping. Damen threw his weight to the left, away from the gaping maw, and the beast’s teeth closed a hair-breadth away from his ear, an awful sound. 

He tried to hit it again, using the flat of the sword rather than the edge, putting all the strength he had in it, levying the blow from his shoulder. The lion’s body shook. It withdrew a little, hackles rising, watching Damen with wary eyes.

He took advantage of the momentary respite to stand, the sword still held firmly in his grip. Blades did not cut it, but perhaps, it could still be killed. Damen bent his knees a little, holding his guard up, as the lion circled him, readying itself to pounce. He would only get one chance. 

He recalled the cattle slaughtered upon the field, their throats torn and their bodies ravaged. The smell. The exposed bones gleaming white.

He let it strengthen his resolve. 

The lion pawed closer, its hackles raised. It was no longer anticipating an easy kill - Damen had, if anything, proved that he had some teeth of his own, and now its eyes were bright and alert, its mighty jaws clenched.

Soundless, it pounced.

Damen held his ground, hand firm upon the sword’s hilt, and then he ducked out of the beast’s path, brought up his arm and slammed the pommel into the back of its head, with all the strength he could muster. 

The beast stayed upright, but it swayed, its eyes going clouded. Damen let the sword clatter to the ground and lunged upon the lion with his bare arms, wrapping his legs about the its torso and his arms around its neck, squeezing. 

It wheezed, panting, wetly, at Damen’s ear, weakly trying to move its head so that it might bite him, but Damen held it fast, until it stopped moving, and its body lolling as it went limp in Damen’s arms. 

Once he was sure it had stopped breathing, he let himself fall upon the ground, his breath coming in quick, sharp bursts. He was shaking, now that the danger was past and the full weight of what he had risked was coming upon him. 

The lion was sprawled on the ground, its big eyes closed. It was as regal in death as it had in life, though its beautiful mane was dusty and dirtied by their fight, and its pelt would make a fine trophy - and finer armor, if the magic that had kept Damen’s steel from piercing it held now that the lion was dead. 

He crawled over to the it, resolved to claim the hide for himself. Laurent had ordered him to slay the beast, after all, and slay it Damen had, but he’d made no claim upon its pelt, and he had no right to it, the trophy being a prerogative of the hunter, and not of its master. 

He had a knife at his belt, but it bounced harmlessly against the pelt, and so did Damen’s sword when he retrieved it. 

He grabbed one of the beast’s paws, and dragged it over its belly - a last resort; he was not truly expecting it to work. The claws, gleaming and wicked and sharp, sank into the hide as though it were butter, as Damen slowly, carefully, cut a shining crimson swathe through the lion’s belly. It was slow going, skinning the lion, since Damen had little practice of it and did not want to risk damaging the pelt, but, finally, it came away in his hands. 

It would need to be treated, if Damen was to wear it as a cloak, but he could pay someone to do that for him. The head of the lion, which he had not been able to skin, he cut, and placed in one of his packs, to bring back to Laurent as proof that he had completed his task.

First, he had to get out of the caves and secure himself a warm meal. Then he’d deal with the fact that he’d been sent, alone and unwarned, to slay a beast that had slaughtered so many warriors, a creature whose coat blades couldn’t cut and arrows couldn’t pierce. 

He’d deal with the fact the prince of Arles had sent him to his death.

***

Laurent first heard the whispers break out, the murmurs spreading like wildfire from the doors of the hall to the dais, where it quieted into a perfect silence.

Damianos, with little fanfare beside those whispers, had entered the hall. He stood at least a head taller than anyone else in the room, his eyes wide and blood-shot, his curls matted and tangled over his forehead, a golden lion pelt thrown carelessly over his shoulders like a cloak. In his hand, fingers gripping the matted fur, he held a lion’s severed head, already half-rotted.

“You’ve returned,” Laurent said. 

Damianos responded by throwing the severed head at his feet. It bounced before the dais, obscenely, rolling until it came to rest against Laurent’s boot, stinking and grotesque, the gaping maws open and the tongue dark and lolling. 

“Thank you,” Laurent said, striving to keep his expression neutral, “for this thoughtful gift.”

“Disappointed, aren’t you?” Damianos asked, his teeth bared.

“I admit I would’ve preferred jewels.” 

“That I’ve come back,” Damianos growled. “Since you so cleverly sent me to my death.” 

“If I’d sent you to your death, you’d not be standing here before me.” 

“Sent me to my death and failed.”

“I do not make an habit of failure.” 

“Don’t you?” Damianos took a few steps closer, until his legs were pressed against the dais. He was tall enough that, though Laurent stood on higher ground, their eyes were level. “You fail at all that matters. At kindness, and fairness, and honor. You have nothing more than a cunning mind and a pretty face. And neither of those will stand the test of time.”

“You are overstepping your boundaries,” Laurent said, voice as clear as he could make it as he desperately tried to cling to the edges of his fraying control. “You may be a prince, but you’re my servant this year. And this is my brother’s hall.”

“I owe no respect to a murderer, too cowardly to dirty his own blade, delegating his kills to a lion.”

Laurent drew himself up, readying some clever barb, some twisted sentence that would make Damianos look the arrogant fool, that would heal the damage being done to his reputation as he stood there and allowed a southern dog to insult him in front of the throne of Arles.

The remark never made it past his lips. 

“Kin-killer,” Damianos said, his voice clear and loud, ringing through the throne room. 

Laurent’s world went red. 

“If you’re so keen to court your death,” he said, “and so keen to think me a villain, when you know nothing at all, then so be it. Let me be what you think of me, and receive your next task from my lips. There is a garden, hidden among the peaks at the border with Vask. And inside the garden, there is a tree, its branches heavy with golden fruits, tended to by three nymphs and guarded by a hundred-headed dragon.” After the initial, all-consuming rage, the fire of his fury had hardened into ice. He felt as though he were merely an observer to the scene unfolding, his own voice foreign and distant to his ears. “Go there, and bring me back three apples from that tree.”

Damianos was looking at him, his mouth open and his eyes wide. “You want me to bring you the golden apples of the garden of the Hesperides,” he said, voice flat with disbelief. 

Laurent nodded.

“Why?” Damianos looked gutted - as well he might: the lion in Varenne may have been a difficult trial, but this was tantamount to a death sentence. 

Laurent shrugged. “What do you care? It’s not your place to question my orders, just to execute them.”

Damianos closed his eyes, briefly, His face was ashen, his jaw and fists clenched. “When do I leave?” His voice was strained. 

“Tomorrow,” Laurent said, “at first light.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gorgeous artwork featured in this chapter is by Sitical, you can also find it on Tumblr [here](http://sitical.tumblr.com/post/180205907189/captive-prince-big-bang-2018-for)!
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr, [here](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com)
> 
> I hope you liked the story so far! If you did, let me know in the comments!
> 
> The chapter title is from Theocritus retelling of the original myth of the Nemean lion


	3. through the moon-pierced warp of night

The next morning, Laurent woke with the weak light of dawn. Outside his window, the sky was overcast; a gentle drizzle was falling, tinging the whole world in shades of gray and giving Laurent the perfect excuse to eschew his customary morning training and avoid showing his face around the court after the previous day’s display. 

He stood anyway, taking off his sleeping shirt with a fluid, well-practiced gesture and leaving it discarded among his rumpled bedding. Naked, he crossed over to his desk, on the surface of which still lay a letter penned in his brother’s hand but with Laurent’s name at the bottom, in which Laurent formally rescinded his order to send Damianos to the garden of the Hesperides. 

Below his name, Auguste had left space enough for Laurent to sign it, and apply his sigil. Laurent took the letter and held it between his fingers, gently, feeling the heavy weight of the paper and its fine grain. 

He crumbled it up and tossed it into the fireplace. 

It was not as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be - the fire had been banked the night before, and the letter did not burn immediately. But he was still rid of it, at least, and he did take some pleasure in watching it slowly crumble to ashes.

After it was done, he dressed himself quickly and settled at his desk, determined to go over the most recent reports from Chastillon - he’d have to go himself, soon, and see how the land was faring. 

His eyes kept straying to the window, however. He peered through the light rain, looking to the road, trying to discern Damianos’ figure on it; a futile endeavor, as it would have been impossible to distinguish one man alone from that distance, even if it had not been market day and the path to the city-gates clogged up by carts and the crowds.

It was barely past dawn. Perhaps Damianos had not even left the city, yet, and there was still time for Laurent to call him back, and undo the damage he’d wrought. His hand almost strayed to the bell that would summon a servant to his side, but then he recalled the way Damianos had looked at him the day before, the tone of his voice as he’d said _kin-killer_ , and he pushed down the tendril of guilt curling in his stomach. 

He was half-expecting Auguste to come storming into his rooms, as soon as he realized that Damianos had left on his quest despite his wishes, but as the morning dragged on, nothing happened. It was not until the bells were striking noon that a servant appeared at Laurent’s door, head bowed, and informed him his presence was required in the throne room. 

Immediately. 

Murmurs broke out when he entered the hall, hair still disheveled from sleep and ink-stains on his fingers, escorted by the servant. The courtiers quieted, the air heavy with anticipation, as he’d knelt in front of Auguste, and his brother had not motioned for him to raise. 

He remained kneeling for a long time, careful to keep his breathing even and his face smooth from expressions, even as he felt the piercing stares boring into his back. Eventually, in the perfect silence, he heard the sound of the doors to the halls being pushed open, of feet walking across the tiles. 

“Your majesty.” Jord’s voice.

Another figure came to kneel in front of the dais next to him. Laurent kept his gaze fixed forward, to his brother’s boots, not turning his head to look at the person next to him - but he could still see the shape of him, just, on the edges of his peripheral vision, and had a fairly good guess of who it was. 

Finally, Auguste motioned for them to rise. 

“Brother,” he began, “I’m sure you know why I have summoned you both here.”

Laurent inclined his head to the side, still not quite turning it, but just enough that he could flick his gaze quickly to the person standing at his side, and confirm his hypothesis. “I haven’t the faintest clue, brother,” he said, sweetly, “especially as Damianos was supposed to leave Arles at first light. Per my orders.”

“Yes,” Auguste, said. His voice was cold, and there was a shadow in his eyes, as he looked at Laurent, that had not been there for five years. “Your orders. I do believe you received orders of your own, last night. Orders you elected to ignore.”

“I received no orders,” Laurent replied, clenching his jaw. _Laurent, Laurent_ a voice whispered, oily and slick, at the back of his mind _You’ve already been dragged in front of the court like a recalcitrant child, must you insist on also acting like one?_. 

“We both know you did. Regarding your decision to send the prince of Ios to the garden of the Hesperides.”

“I do seem to recall a letter. But he is my servant, to do with as I see fit.” Laurent could feel Damianos’ gaze on him, intent. It made his neck prickle, somehow harder to endure than the judgement of the court had been. 

“So long as it is not infringing on the affairs of the crown.” 

“Is it? Infringing on the affairs of the crown? If you’re worried about relations with Ios, Theomedes can hardly take his offense out on us, if his son falls honorably in the execution of his duties. Especially as I have sworn to free his bastard as soon as the crown prince’s year of servitude is up. The rest of the Southern alliance will not support him, if he’s so clearly motivated by revenge alone, while the North will stand behind us.”

Auguste’s lips twisted. “I fear that argument breaks down when _your_ actions are so clearly motivated by revenge alone.”

“Perhaps I have use for the golden apples,” Laurent replied, “for instance, an empty spot on my mantel that needs filling.”

Beside him, Damianos snorted. “Having seen this palace, I find it difficult to believe you have an empty spot anywhere,” he said, dry, the first words he’d uttered since entering the hall, “and having met you, I find it difficult to believe you have anything that needs filling.”

Titters broke out across the hall. 

“As you can see,” Laurent said, coolly, not sparing Damianos a single glance, “he shows me no respect. Am I to allow it?”

“No,” Auguste conceded, “but neither are you to send him to his death for it.” 

“If he’s clever, he can survive the task,” Laurent replied, dismissively, “the golden apples have been stolen before.”

“Yes,” Damianos cut in, “by _gods_.” 

“Still, it’s proof that it can be done.”

“If I may, your majesty,” one of Auguste’s councilmen simpered, taking a step forward. Guion - a worm if there ever was one. He had lost two sons to Laurent’s challenge, which had made an enemy of him, though not a particularly dangerous one. He wasn’t nearly as clever as he flattered himself to be. “Since the Prince believes this mission to be an appropriate punishment for the offense that has been given to him, it should be right that he administer it as he sees fit. However,” he added, when it looked as if Auguste was going to speak, “he too has given offense, to your majesty, and it is not less grave to the one done to him. So he should share the same punishment as Damianos of Ios.”

Ah. He’d never believed Guion had the guts for such a definitive form of revenge, not when it risked him Auguste’s ire, but perhaps he thought that if he sent Laurent to his death here, in the legitimacy of the court, shrouding the deed in clever words, he’d be spared from retribution. 

The fool. 

Auguste frowned, and he turned a look of censure upon Guion. “Today is not meant to exacerbate the situation further.”

“Oh, no, it is fine,” Laurent said, lightly, and had to suppress a smile at the shocked murmurs he felt at his back. “In the name of fairness, and all that, I’ll accompany Damianos on this journey. Hopefully, he won’t be too much of an hinderance. However”, he held up his hand, “if I succeed and come back with the apples, I would ask a boon.”

“Which is?”

“That my loyalty and accomplishments be recognized, and that I be given a place on your council, brother, even though I’m still almost a year from my twenty-first birthday.” That should see Guion throughly defanged, as an opponent, and if he played his cards right, he could probably strip him of all his influence before the year was out. 

Guion took a step forward. “Your majesty, there are no empty spots on the council.”

Laurent turned to smile at him, glacial. “Yours will do nicely.”

“Laurent,” Auguste said, “this is a perilous mission, and for little gain. You are my brother and my heir, and I would not have you endanger yourself so, any more than I would have Damianos do it. Please, reconsider.” 

This was harder to refuse than the earlier display of power had been. Laurent swallowed. “I’m sorry, brother,” he said, “but my mind is made.” He could not fold, not now, not after so much time holding on to his position - it would’ve meant showing weakness, and weakness in this court meant that there would be claws digging into his flesh before the day was out. 

Auguste shut his eyes, briefly, something like pain flickering in his expression. “Then let it be done.”

***

Later, his brother came to see him in his chambers.

He did not have himself announced, so that Laurent did not know exactly when he arrived, only that, at one point, he turned and saw Auguste there, half-leaned against the wall, his arms crossed and his expression imperscrutable. “Laurent,” he said, and his voice was pained, “what am I to do with you?”

Laurent stiffened. He knew this - it was the backhanded comfort after the humiliation. _This needn’t have happened. We could have avoided all this unpleasantness. If only you were more biddable. If only you’d listened. Come, now, embrace me, and let us put this matter behind us._

“I feel that wherever I turn, I hurt you,” Auguste continued, and it brought Laurent up short. 

“What?”

“If I let you stand on your own, completely unassisted, I feel like I’m abandoning you and nurturing your worst instincts. Rebukes in private do not work. And now I’ve addressed the matter publicly, and somehow made it even worse.” Auguste covered his face with the palm of his hand, and stroked downwards, the gesture weary. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I think that I’ve done nothing but hurt you since father died.”

Laurent let out a long, shuddering breath. “Sometimes I think that I’ve done nothing but disappoint you since father died,” he admitted, softly. He’d not felt this exposed in front of his brother since the days of his trial, when he’d gone to Auguste’s bedroom in the night, and fallen to his knees, and let the whole sordid tale come tumbling out, and asked, strained and tear-stained, _Do you hate me, now? He said you’d hate me._

His brother had been there to catch him, then, and raise him up. 

Auguste sighed, and shut his eyes, for a moment, his expression pained. “I’m sorry. I never want you to feel that way.” He crossed over the space between them, and caressed Laurent’s face, shifting a few pale curls out of his eyes. “You’re my greatest pride, Laurent. Even if you drive me insane sometimes. I never want you to forget that, or to doubt it.”

“I don’t want you to think you’ve been hurting me, either,” Laurent said. “I haven’t exactly been easy to handle, since-“

“I don’t care whether you’re easy or not,” Auguste interrupted. “I just care whether or not you’re happy.” 

“But you’d prefer it if I sent fewer foreign princes to their death by way of blood-thirsty monsters.”

Auguste smiled, a touch ruefully. “Yes, that would make our diplomatics efforts easier. But that is not the only reason I stepped in, today, however poorly I handled it.”

Laurent furrowed his brow. “What other reasons did you have?”

“I don’t want you to become so cold you’d have a man killed out of spite,” Auguste said, slowly, though not hesitantly. Like he had thought this words through before coming to Laurent’s rooms. “The suitors, I can understand. I know how little you desire marriage, and I know that many, if not all, of those who come to race for your hand do not care for your willingness. I can respect a desire to protect yourself from harm. But what Damianos did yesterday… those are just _words_ Laurent. They cannot hurt you, not in any real way. You are better than the stories they tell of you, and I do not want you to embitter yourself to the point that you become nothing more than some beautiful villain in a poem.” 

“Am I?” Laurent asked, striving for lightness, but his voice hitched and cracked. “Better than the stories they tell of me?”

“I believe so,” Auguste said, firm. “But it doesn’t really matter what I believe, does it?” 

Laurent sighed, pressing his brother’s hand between his. “I pray that you are right.” 

“I know I am,” Auguste replied. With his free hand, he cupped the nape of Laurent’s neck and drew him forward, so that they could embrace. “I wish you wouldn’t go,” he whispered, planting a rough kiss to the side of Laurent’s head.

“I’ll come back,” he promised. “Have you ever known me to get into a scrape I couldn’t get out of?”

“No,” Auguste admitted, “but only because your _scrapes_ are such that the day that comes to pass, you won’t live to tell the tale.”

***

The sky was still gray, when they set out. It was raining; a cold, miserable drizzle that, slowly but surely, soaked Damen’s hair and started running in freezing rivulets down his neck, into his clothing. Shivering, he hauled the lion’s pelt - the only thing that seemed impervious to the rain - closer around himself.

Laurent, infuriatingly, bore the ill weather with more grace than Damen did, sitting straight and seemingly unaffected in the saddle, his hands confident on the sodden reins, though his golden curls were plastered to his forehead, and his clothing clung to him, the blue jacket and pants turned nearly black by the rain, his polished boots slipping occasionally on the stirrups. 

The rain let up, eventually, though the sky remained gray and the wind cold, about halfway though the afternoon - as far as Damen could tell; it was difficult, for him, used to the blue skies and swift thunderstorms of Ios, to discern the passing hours, in the strange half-light of the overcast day.

They stopped as evening was falling. Laurent dismounted, still not gracing Damen with so much as a nod, immediately turninf to take care of his horse, a task he fulfilled attentively, and with a practiced ease that was surprising in a prince. Damen usually had attendants to complete such menial tasks for him, though of course he also knew how to do them himself - a crown prince had a right to receive service, but had to be self-sufficient, all the same. 

Once they were done with the horses, Laurent finally turned to him. “Get a fire started,” he said, “if you can.” Then he took up a satchel, and his quiver and his bow, and disappeared into the trees. 

Damen, bristling, set out to do so. Even if he disliked obeying Laurent’s orders, it was better to do so than risk freezing in the night, or catching a fever. It was a difficult task, because any wood he found was wet, and wouldn’t catch flame; even when it did, the fire died very quickly, releasing a great billow of smoke. 

Eventually, he used, not without a little malicious thrill, one of Laurent’s spare shirts to dry the kindling as much as he could, and was finally able to start a small fire. 

A short while later, Laurent returned, a rabbit dangling from his fist. He threw it into Damen’s lap, with a careless flick of his wrist, and Damen took it into his hands to examine it. There was not a mark on the carcass, but its neck dangled, broken. Laurent had not used his arrows.

“What an I meant to do with this?” 

Laurent’s mouth twisted. “Tear into it fur and all, isn’t that how you eat rabbits in the South?”

“You’re misinformed. That’s how we eat princelings.” 

“Skin it,” Laurent said, gesturing to the rabbit, “and then I’ll cook it.” 

Damen looked down at the carcass. “I’ve never skinned a rabbit, before.”

Laurent arched his eyebrows. “You skinned the lion, though, didn’t you?”

“It’s different.”

Laurent shrugged. “An animal’s an animal.” 

“Haven’t we packed supplies?”

“We have, but there’s no reason to start using them now, when we can have fresh meat - we’ll start when we go farther into the mountains, or on days when I’m unable to hunt.”

“Can’t you skin it, then?” Damen pressed. “Since you’re such a skilled hunter.”

Laurent raised his chin. “I don’t see why I should bear the brunt of the work,” he said coldly. “Is the crown prince of Ios incapable of pulling his own weight?” 

The aloof standoffishness probably meant he did not know how to skin a rabbit any more than Damen did; he’d have taken great pleasure in shoving his superiority into Damen’s face, otherwise. 

Damen sighed, turning his attention to the rabbit again. It was much smaller than a lion, or the wolves and boars he’d sometimes skinned after hunts, to claim the victory spoils. The principle couldn’t be too different, though; it was as Laurent had said, an animal was an animal. 

Gingerly, he took the knife from his belt, and started an incision along the rabbit’s belly. The folds of the skin parted, revealing the gleaming blood and viscera beneath. An auspicious start. Emboldened, he dared to go a little faster. 

Something gave way under his knife, and a nauseating stench filled the hair - he’d pierced through the bowels. Damen, instinctively, let go of the rabbit. It tumbled onto the dirt, innards and brackish blood spilling out. 

Laurent, a few paces away, glared at him. He looked as though he wanted to comment, but was too busy trying to breathe only through his mouth. “I guess we can make a dent in the supplies tonight,” he eventually said. “Can you be trusted with dried meat, or is that too complicated for you, as well?”

***

Their first week of travels passed in much the same vein - the weather remained horrible. The company, even more so.

After they made camp, every evening, Laurent would disappear into the trees with his bow and arrows, and he’d return with one or two rabbit carcasses, necks broken and unmarked by arrows. Damen had no idea how he was catching them, if it wasn’t with the arrows, and why he’d bother taking the bow in the first place, if he wasn’t going to use it. 

He did become more proficient with the rabbits, slowly. Laurent cooked them over a spit, once Damen was done skinning them. He was a terrible cook, the meat always somehow managing to be charred in places and raw and bleeding in others, and stringy and hard - though that could’ve been due to the quality of the meat itself, rather than with Laurent’s lack of cooking abilities. 

About a week after they’d set out, the weather took a turn for the worse. They were going through a birch-trees forest, the trees closely pressed together, so that they’d had to dismount and were leading the horses by hand, when the first clap of thunder came. Damen’s mare shied, violently, and he had to throw all his weight into keeping her still. 

He peered upwards, but the foliage was too thick for him to see the sky, or discern the lightning. The water started coming faster - rivulets becoming veritable rivers down the branches and trunks of the trees, turning the ground to mud. It was not yet night, but darkness was falling quickly. 

“We have to look for shelter.”

Laurent turned to look at him. “What we have to do is get out of the wood. Lightning is not something one survives.” 

Damen nodded. “How much farther?” 

Laurent was silent for some time. “I don’t know,” he admitted, at last, “it shouldn’t be too long, but it’s difficult to tell how much time has passed since we entered it.” 

Damen sighed, tightening his hold on the reins. It would be as long as it took, he supposed, but he didn’t relish having to walk through this storm, and with a horse that was growing more skittish by the moment. 

He’d barely taken half a step, when the mare swerved so violently he had to let her go. She darted between the trees, a shadow among shadows. Damen turned, expecting to hear some sort of scathing commentary from Laurent, something along the lines of _what use are those oversized muscles of yours, if you can’t even control a horse_ , but Laurent was focused on his own mount, hands white-knuckled around the reins, as it tried to tug itself free. 

Laurent was digging the soles of his boots into the mud, biceps bulging under the sodden fabric of his jacket, jaw clenched. It was no use. The horse tossed its head, neighing, dragging Laurent along, inch by inch, towards the darkness and the trees. 

Damen hurried over to him, grabbing the wet rains in his fist and trying to bring the mare to heel, while Laurent took advantage of the reprieve to shake out his reddened hands and put his arms around the horse’s neck, murmuring something soothing in its ear.

The mare seemed to calm a little, turning its head into Laurent’s shoulder and neighing softly. Laurent ran his palm over its mane, panting. Damen met his eyes, breathing out slowly, relaxing even though the wind and the rain still lashed at them. They were down one horse and half their supplies, but it looked as though the worst had passed. 

It was then, in the momentary quiet, that he heard the growl.

The horse spasmed in their grip, trying to escape again, throwing all its weight into it, bucking with so much force that Laurent was knocked to the ground and had to roll away to avoid being trampled by the hooves.

Damen held on a moment longer, until he had to let go as well, or risk his arms being pulled clean from their sockets. 

Initially, he thought the creature that slunk towards them, belly pressed to the forest floor, was a lion - it had a lion’s golden body, darkened with water, and a lion’s wild, untamed mane. But its tail was a dark, shining mass, slithering over the earth. 

It raised its head. A human face looked at them, black-eyed and ugly, its mouth obscenely distorted with a lion’s row of gleaming fangs. 

Laurent was pulling itself to his feet, slowly, gingerly pressing his hand against his shoulder. He cursed when he saw the creature. “Manticore,” he hissed. “Mind the tail.”

He bent and picked up his sword. He was about to take off running, but Damen grabbed his wrist. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Laurent turned his head to look at him. His eyes were steady. “Trust me,” he said, before disappearing into the trees. 

Damn him to the darkest pits of Tartarus. 

Damen unsheathed his sword, bending his knees slightly, his gaze fixed on the manticore as it approached him, paws silent and light over the mud. 

It pounced almost without warning, lightning-swift. Its claws swiped over Damen’s abdomen, the force of the blow enough to make his knees buckle, but it did not draw blood.

The lion’s pelt had protected him.

Emboldened, Damen ventured a strike against the creature’s flank. His sword parted its flesh easily, brackish ichor raising to the surface and running down the manticore’s haunches and he pressed his advantage, moving in closer.

The manticore’s tail whistled through the air. Damen threw himself backwards, away from it, half on instinct, Laurent’s warning echoing through his head. The tail embedded itself in the slick mud, shivering. 

Damen got a good look at it, for the first time, as the creature raised it again - it was a scorpion’s tail, weeping poison. 

He kept his eyes on it as it arced above him, tightening his grip on his sword. 

He braced himself to jump away as it came down, ready to take advantage of the moment when it was stuck in the dirt to strike.

He did not have to. 

He’d not heard Laurent move, or get in behind him, but their shoulders pressed together briefly, and he saw the silver swing of his sword. The tail hit the ground a few paces from them.

Laurent had sliced it clean off.

The manticore wailed, throwing its monstrous head back, as ichor stained the earth in rivers. He and Laurent stood shoulder to shoulder across it, as it leaped at them, jaws gaping and movements wild, frenzied with pain and fury.

Laurent moved again, his sword a quicksilver flash, and drew a dark line over the creature’s throat. It keep moving for a moment, then its pelt darkened again with ichor. 

It crumpled onto itself and breathed its last.

***

For some time, they simply stood silently in the spreading pool of ichor, catching their breaths. Laurent’s arms screamed in protest, his shoulder throbbing with the blow he’d taken earlier, when his horse had pushed him onto the ground.

He looked down at the manticore’s body, the full weight of what they’d just done finally slamming into him. 

Damianos, at his side, seemed to be in much the same vein. Eventually, he cleared his throat. “That was impressive sword-work,” he said, unflatteringly surprised.

“I _am_ a favorite of the goddess of the hunt,” Laurent pointed out, tartly. 

Damianos was silent. “I thought those were just stories,” he said. “Things people whispered about you because it makes for a better story if the cold, untouchable beauty has godly connections.”

“Is it so difficult to believe,” Laurent asked, “that she and I might find a sense of shared similarity?”

“No,” Damianos replied, and his voice was soft. “It is not difficult at all.” 

“You fought well too,” Laurent admitted, looking at the slain manticore, still bleeding out sluggishly into the mud. 

Damianos looked at him for a long moment, his dark, thick brows drawn together.“Thank you,” he said, his voice shaking with badly suppressed laughter, “did it stick in your throat very much?”

“You’re not giving me much incentive to compliment you again,” Laurent pointed out, but he was smiling, too, though he knew Damianos could not see him. 

They started walking through the birch forest, again. The rain let up, eventually, the sky clearing to show a full, silver moon and the scattered stars. Laurent swayed, exhaustion dragging at him, and had to catch himself on Damianos’ shoulders, as the trees thinned out and the open fields unfolded in front of them, grain swaying and gray in the darkness. 

“There’s a house, there,” Damianos said, pointing. 

Laurent peered in the darkness. Indeed, there was, though its walls were half torn down and the roof oddly lopsided. “Not much of a house,” he said. There was another structure next to the ruin; a barn, maybe, and in much better condition than the house. All four walls were still standing, at least. 

It was indeed a barn. The door has rusted shut, and Laurent found himself thankful for Damianos’ presence, since he managed to break it open with a blow from his massive shoulder. Inside, it was not as bad as Laurent had expected it to be. There were shadowed stalls that presumably had housed the animals when the area had still be inhabited, and the steps to the hayloft had not rotten. Wearily, he climbed them, navigating the staircase at the scant moonlight that entered through the gaps in the stones, one hand kept firmly pressed to the wall. 

There was still some straw, in the hayloft, though it smelled distinctively of mildew. Regardless, Laurent collapsed onto it, shaking. A few steps away, Damianos was pushing the lion pelt off his shoulders, laying it out to dry, and more or less ripping the pin off his chiton, letting the wet cotton fall carelessly to the ground.

Hastily, Laurent averted his gaze. He attempted to push his boots off, but his hands were cold and useless, his fingers white and swollen, red lines criss-crossing his palms where the reins had chafed against his skin while his horse buckled. He tugged a few times, ineffectually. He’d have to resign himself to a cold, wet night, he realized, as he lay back on the hay and looked up at the shadowed ceiling.

The first touch of warm fingers on his knees startled him.

“Let me,” Damianos said, his voice pitched quiet and low in the space between them. 

Laurent relaxed back into the hay, a conscious effort, though he kept his head turned slightly to the side, looking at Damianos through lowered lashes. At his big, dark hands, one tugging the boot off at Laurent’s calf, the other braced on his thigh, his palm wide and hot against the thin, wet fabric of Laurent’s trousers. 

He pulled off one boot, letting it fall carelessly to the floor with a smothered thud, then the other. Laurent breathed out, expecting him to retreat, but the hands returned, gentle and barely there on the lacings at his hips. 

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Damianos asked, starting to work on the sodden knots. “You can’t sleep in these clothes. You’ll catch a fever and die.”

“That’s an over-dramatic assessment,” Laurent said, but did not reach out to stop him. He watched as the pants started to open along his thigh, revealing a widening triangle of pale skin, first at his right leg, then, once Damianos had unlaced as far as his knee, at his left. There was more lacing at his crotch, but Damianos thankfully left that alone, instead tugging the trousers off, albeit not without some difficulty. 

Once he was done, he straightened, offering his hands to Laurent, who rose up on his knees to take them. Damianos turned Laurent’s palms over, hissing softly when he saw the damage. He enfolded Laurent’s hands in his own, rubbing them gently to return some heat to them, then he started plucking at the laces at Laurent’s wrists. 

With the constraining lacing loosened, blood started flowing back to Laurent’s fingers. It brought pain with it, so sudden and sharp that Laurent had to press his lips tightly together to keep himself from hissing.

Once the laces were open to Laurent’s elbows, Damianos moved his fingers to Laurent’s throat, but stopped short, frowning.

“It laces in the back,” Laurent said. 

“Well, then,” Damianos replied, “turn around.”

Laurent did, shifting on his knees. “Don’t get any ideas,” he said. He was acutely aware of the picture he must’ve been presenting; the dark, wet jacket and the fine cotton shirt he wore underneath clinging to his torso, hem barely skimming his hips and nothing but bare skin below, his muscular thighs tensed.

Damianos shifted his hair over his shoulder, starting to work on the laces at Laurent’s nape. “You’re covered in mud and worse,” he said, “don’t flatter yourself, you’re not that desirable.” He undressed Laurent with quick, utilitarian gestures, his touches perfunctory, until he reached the base of Laurent’s spine. As he slipped the laces through the last of the eyelets, his knuckle brushed against Laurent’s tailbone, then over the swell of his buttock. Laurent jolted.

As the jacket parted like a shell, Damianos removed his fingers and stepped back. “There,” he said, “you should be able to manage the rest on your own.”

Laurent turned back to look at him. One of his hands was still extended, hovering in the air between them, as though caught in an aborted movement. For a wild moment, Laurent believed Damianos would close the space between them, to stroke his cheek, or to brush his hair away from his face. 

“Get some sleep,” Damianos said, instead, voice rough, withdrawing his hand. He stood, walking a few steps to settle on a patch of hay well away from Laurent. With a quick gesture, he undid the loincloth he’d been wearing under his chiton, laying that out to dry along with the rest of his clothing. Hastily, Laurent busied himself with removing the rest of his own clothing; the jacket, open and trailing laces, already half-fallen off his shoulders, and the fine shirt, gone sheer and dripping water. 

He drifted off to sleep to the sound of Damianos’ breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter!! If you did, let me know in the comments!
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr, [here](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com)
> 
> The chapter title comes from [this](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/apples-hesperides) poem by Amy Lowell


	4. swaying to the kissing breeze

Damen became aware of the rough texture of the hay against his skin, first, then the dryness of the air, the white light against his eyelids, insistent. 

He opened his eyes. A few paces from him, lay Laurent, turned on his stomach, still fast asleep, his head turned so he was facing Damen. He was outlined in sunlight, all of him ivory and gold, like an effigy to Apollo, his hair gilded and gleaming like a newly minted coin, his eyelashes pale and fluttering, his mouth half-parted in sleep, his lips the palest pink. 

Damen’s gaze traveled, from his face, to the hint of his slender neck, to his white, smooth back. Lower, to the well-formed curves of his buttocks, his firm, muscled thighs, his calves, his graceful, fine-boned ankles. 

He watched, as Laurent, too, came awake, blinking languidly. He pushed himself into a kneeling position, disturbing the hay that had been his bed and looked over at Damen, in turn; a slow, appraising look. “Really?” he asked, quirking a brow, his eyes on the place where Damen’s body had, helplessly, reacted to the sight of him. 

Damen felt his face heat, suppressing the strangely childish instinct to cover himself. “It’s an entirely ordinary condition to be in, in the morning,” he said, defensively. Laurent, he noticed, did not share that condition, his cock laying quiescent against his thigh. 

“If you say so,” Laurent replied, something that Damen could almost have called a smile hovering at his lips. “You’re everywhere in proportion, at least,” he added, idly, as he stood in one fluid motion and turned his back to Damen, bending to pick up his clothing where it lay discarded in the hay.

Damen gaped at him, torn between indignation and arousal. 

He was still bristling over the dismissive comment as Laurent started lacing up his trousers, his gestures swift, utilitarian. Nonchalant. As though Damen’s presence did not signify. 

“The situation is not ideal,” Laurent said, as he knotted the laces at his left hip, not looking up from his task as he spoke. “We have no food, no horses. No gold save for what we had on us-“

“You’ve held on to your signet ring,” Damen pointed out. He’d seen it the night before, as he’d undressed Laurent, hanging from his neck on a fine golden chain. 

“Yes,” said Laurent. “But I don’t see how that’ll help us. I won’t sell it, and even if I could, we’d be accused of thievery immediately. We don’t much look the part of royalty, now, neither of us.”

“There has to be someone who’d recognize us,” Damen said. “Some noble you’ve encountered before.” 

Laurent shrugged. “I’m not exactly popular around these parts.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Damen said, not quite under his breath.

Laurent turned his head, slightly, to glare at him over his shoulder, though the expression was not nearly as venomous as it would’ve been the day before. “If they take issue with the execution of their sons, they should have counseled them against challenging me.” 

“I don’t think it’s quite as clear-cut as you make it sound,” Damen pointed out, but he raised his hand when it looked as though Laurent were going to argue further. “No matter,” he said, “I’m not very likely to be popular here, either. And what you said is true: we don’t _look_ like royalty, and if someone means us ill, they could very easily kill us and claim a conviction that we were imposters.”

Laurent nodded. He had finished lacing his trousers, and had moved on to his jacket. He was looking at Damen, now, having turned to face him fully. “Do you have anything worth selling? The lion skin might fetch a good price.” 

“It can repel any ordinary weapon,” Damen said. “I’m not parting with it.” 

Laurent sighed. “Much good invulnerability will do to you if we starve to death.” 

“Don’t be absurd,” Damen said. “We won’t starve to death. You’re clearly an accomplished hunter, and we can trade work for coins if we come across any villages. It’ll just be a matter of living rough for a few weeks.” 

“ _Living rough_?” Laurent repeated, on the edge of laughter. “You’ve never lived rough a day in your life, what would you possibly know of it? And what manner of work do you propose we do? Do you know how to thatch a roof or repair a fence? Swinging a sword around, which is your only noteworthy skill, is not something that’ll earn you quick gold in a small village.”

“I’ve lived rough before,” Damen said, stubbornly.

“ _You didn’t know how to skin a rabbit_!”

“And sword-fighting is not my only skill. I can read and write and speak in many different languages, and I can count. And I expect much the same of you. These are abilities not easily found in rural villages, and we can trade on them.” 

Laurent’s eyes widened, a little, as though he had been taken by surprise, his stance loosening. “You’re right,” he said, at length. “Those _are_ abilities we can exploit.” 

“What?” Damen prompted, when Laurent remained unmoving for a moment longer. “Surprised the dumb, Southern brute came up with that solution?”

“Yes, actually,” Laurent admitted. He did not sound scathing. Rather, he sounded - sincere, something bright and focused in his gaze that had not been there before. 

“I was surprised, as well,” Damen said, “Yesterday night. When you slew that manticore.” 

Laurent’s mouth curved. “You drew first blood. The kill was yours, by any reckoning.” 

“You saved my life,” Damen insisted, recalling the graceful swathe of Laurent’s sword, the sickening thump as the manticore’s tail hit the ground. “Thank you.”

Laurent regarded him for a few moments longer. “I suppose we might agree that we are both full of surprises,” he said, and the curves of his lips blossomed into a full, bright smile.

“I suppose we might,” Damen said; finding himself, suddenly, caught off-guard, something curling and catching in his chest in response to that smile, to that look in Laurent’s eyes.

***

The atmosphere as their campsite, that night, was more relaxed that it had been in previous days, even if they were as silent as ever. Possibly, two men could not slay a monster together without coming to share some modicum of camaraderie.

Laurent had caught another rabbit - Damen had finally worked up the courage to ask him how he was doing it, to which Laurent had replied, as though this were the most foolish question in the world, _by outrunning it, of course_. Damen still had the niggling doubt that he might not have been entirely facetious. 

Damen had skinned it, almost easily after close to a week of practice, and they had settled in around the fire, Laurent occasionally poking at the sizzling meat with a stick, or turning it at seemingly random intervals on the stake.

“Are you sure that is the way it’s supposed to be done?” Damen asked.

“Do _you_ know how to cook it?” Laurent replied, which wasn’t a _yes_. 

Nevertheless, the answer to Laurent’s question was _no_ , so Damen kept his peace. 

After a while, he found himself watching Laurent; the effortless grace of his hands as he reached up to push a few golden tendrils away from his face, the steady, focused blue of his eyes, the jut of his chin.

His mouth, relaxed for once out of it cruelly suppressed line, was a thing of beauty: a deep, dark pink in the light of the fire, his bottom lip full and sensuous, the top gently angled. 

That mouth had curved into a smile, earlier that day, in the hayloft - _Laurent_ had smiled, and it had reached his eyes, and Damen had wanted to smile back. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Laurent asked, turning his head so that they were facing each other. The movement cast half his face into brighter firelight, and the other half into the shadows. 

“Like what?”

“Like _that_.”

“Far from your usual eloquence, your highness,” Damen teased.

Laurent did not quite scowl, but the left side of his mouth - the only side Damen could see - twitched for a moment before he brought himself under control. “You know precisely what I mean.”

_I want you_ Damen thought, a little helplessly, _though I don’t think you’ll appreciate me saying so._. But that was not quite it. He’d wanted Laurent before, even as he’d despised him. “I think I’m starting to like you,” he said slowly, in dawning horror. 

Laurent’s lips twitched. “What is the world coming to?” he asked dryly.

“See?” Damen said, half on a startled laugh. “There you go, being charming again.” 

“I’m sorry,” Laurent said, very seriously. “I’m going to be as dour as possible for the remainder of the trip.” 

“You do that,” Damen said. 

Laurent snorted, turning his attention back to the meat. 

“If you don’t want to get married,” Damen found himself asking, lulled by the warmth of the fire, and the warmth of the company, “why bother with the challenge in the first place? Why not just refuse any suitor that came to Arles?”

Laurent went rigid. For a moment, Damen feared that whatever fragile peace they’d built between them in the wake of the fight with the manticore had been shattered. Then Laurent relaxed again, a palpable effort. “My brother wouldn’t let me,” he started, but he paused almost immediately. “No. That is unfair. Auguste would allow me to do whatever I wished with my life. But the council insisted.”

“Why?”

Laurent waved a hand, carelessly. “Oh, they offered a whole slew of excuses. It would cause offense, to refuse any who came asking for my hand. We needed the marriage alliances. The truth is that I am an hinderance to their scheming, so long as I am at my brother’s side.” 

“But why execute the suitors?” 

“I didn’t think anyone would take the challenge, if the price for losing was death,” Laurent said. He passed one hand over is face. “How wrong I was.” 

They were silent for some time. “You’ve said,” Damen began eventually, “that my brother had you drugged, before your race.”

Laurent nodded. “What of it?”

“If you have enemies in your brother’s court, enemies who’d like to see you married off soon, isn’t it possible that one of them was the one who drugged you?”

“If it helps you sleep at night to think that,” Laurent replied, “then by all means, believe it.”

“Look,” Damen said, instinctively reaching between them and pressing Laurent’s wrist. “I am sorry you were subjected to that. But I am sure my brother didn’t know of the attempt. He is an honorable man.” 

Laurent looked, slowly, from Damen’s hand on his wrist, to Damen’s face, his brows drawn together slightly. “You should be careful of your brother,” Laurent said. “There is an hunger in him, one I wouldn’t like to see unleashed.”

“He is an honorable man,” Damen repeated, stubbornly. “Whatever his flaws, he has always been that.”

“I hope you’re right,” Laurent said, “for your sake, if nothing else.”

***

A few weeks later, as he was looking for wood to set up the campfire, he came across Laurent emptying a snare. “I knew you were not outrunning, them!” he exclaimed, absurdly delighted.

Laurent straightened, the rabbit carcass dangling from his hand and turned to narrow his eyes at Damen. “Did you really believe I wanted you to think that?” he asked. “I despair of you, Damianos.”

“Damen.”

“What?”

“Call me Damen. Everyone does.” The idiocy of the words registered just as he said them.

“I find that a little hard to believe,” Laurent said, but he was smiling.

“Everyone that,” _matters_ was the word on the tip of his tongue, but there was something about using it that felt off. Whether it was the thought that Laurent mattered, or the thought of admitting it to him, Damen couldn’t have said. “Everyone that is close to me does,” he finished. 

Laurent cocked his head to the side. “Are we close?”

“I suppose we must be.”

“Very well,” he conceded, “Damen.” Laurent said his name slowly, a little shyly, as though he was trying to fit his lips around the syllables. Damen found he liked the way it felt, hearing it from his mouth. 

Framed by the setting sun, his golden hair in disarray, his simple traveling clothes dust-stained by the long weeks on the road, the rabbit held loosely in his fist, Laurent looked like what he was - a young man, if an exceptionally beautiful one. He might’ve been anyone - a minor noble on a hunt, a traveling mercenary, a youth from a village. 

Then he smirked, and was returned to himself, though something of the momentary illusion remained about him, in the easy set of his shoulders, in the mischief in his blue eyes. “Well?” he prodded, “Did you really think I was catching the rabbits by outrunning them? You do know that’s impossible, don’t you?”

“It is hard to predicts the limits of what it’s possible or impossible, when it comes to you,” Damen admitted. “As you seem to treat any insurmountable obstacle as a mild inconvenience.”

“Says the man who has killed a lion by strangling it with his bare hands.” 

“Maybe we’re simply a matched set,” Damen suggested.

“Now you’re just flattering yourself,” Laurent replied, but he was smiling. 

“Wait a moment,” Damen said, once he had gathered enough firewood and they were returning to camp. “Since it’s now established that you’ve not been racing after our dinner while I set up the campsite-”

“Yes?” 

“What have you been doing in that time?”

“Oh, you know,” Laurent said vaguely, “checking the traps, that sort of thing.”

Damen turned to look at him, and he smiled, blushing, not quite meeting his eyes.

“You are a far better liar than this,” Damen said, “are you trying to look helpless so that I’ll ignore the fact that you’ve been shirking?”

“Is it working?”

In response, Damen dumped the small pile of wood he was holding into Laurent’s arms, with enough force that he staggered and had to catch himself with his shoulder against the trunk of a nearby tree. “Fair enough,” he said, laughing.

***

One day, as spring turned to summer and they drew close enough to their destination that they could see the mountains looming over them, deep crags of grey and palest pinks and oranges and lilacs, they came across a wide river as they were setting up camp, and Laurent insisted on trying his hand at fishing.

He laid on his belly for hours, a makeshift fishing rod in his hands, eyes intent on the water, as Damen worked around him to set the camp, and gather firewood, and light the fire, and heat water over the fire so that it would be safe to drink. Eventually, Laurent returned as the day died, face flushed red from his time in the sun, his hair in hopeless disarray.

He had actually caught something, which was more than Damen had thought him capable of accomplishing, but it was not nearly enough to feed them both - in fact, it was not even nearly enough to feed even one of them. 

He raised an eyebrow, looking from the tiny fish in Laurent’s hand, to his disgruntled expression, and said nothing, though he felt his amusement must’ve shown on his face. 

Laurent scowled further. “Well, _I_ ’m eating it,” he said, and veritably threw the fish at Damen, who caught in on instinct. It was cold, and slimy, and Damen felt suddenly sure that he had lost all appetite for fish, now and for the duration of his natural days.

“I’ll go check the snares,” Laurent said, “You know how to debone a fish, don’t you?”

“I didn’t know how to skin a rabbit, what made you think I would know how to debone a fish?”

“You live in a costal city!”

“You live near a forest, and you didn’t know how to skin a rabbit, either,” Damen pointed out, he felt, not unreasonably. They were princes. Fish and rabbit usually came to their tables already skinned, and cut up, and cooked. Even on campaign, when the living had been rough, Damen had not had to worry about those particular aspects of getting food to his plate. “We probably should’ve brought a servant with us.” 

“I’d say we’ve been muddling through well enough, haven’t we?” Laurent asked, cocking his head to the side. 

“With only the odd casualty,” Damen said. “Go check the snares, I’ll see what I can do with this fish.”

Laurent turned to go, but Damen said, “Wait!” And Laurent did, a slightly quizzical smile on his face. 

Damen stood, and went to join him, and threaded his fingers through the sun-warmed curls behind Laurent’s ear. “You have grass in your hair, fair Glaucus,” he said, holding up a handful of thin green blades.

“Will they turn me immortal, do you think?” Laurent asked, taking them from Damen’s hands. His fingers, where they brushed Damen’s, were warm, slightly rough with callouses. 

“I think they’re more likely to poison you,” Damen replied, “but you’re welcome to try.”

Laurent laughed like it had been startled out of him; a full, bright sound, like the ringing of bells. 

Damen butchered the fish beyond repair, and Laurent returned with two rabbits from his snares. He attempted to make a stew out of them, which tasted as good as anything Laurent had ever cooked, which was to say, it tasted like old boots left in vinegar for a week. 

But still, looking at Laurent across from him, his hair turned crimson in the firelight, and hearing, again and again, the tinkling echoes of that laugh, Damen would not have traded that meal for any he had tasted in his father’s hall.

***

Gradually, the terrain changed, from woods to foothills to bare, harsh rocks.

They climbed, for three days, under the unrelenting glare of the sun, upon mountains so tall that it felt, at times, like Laurent only had to reach up his hand to touch the sky above. As the days passed, the unrelenting sun scorched him, and the wind whipped at him, and the rock scraped his palms bloody. 

If during the day the heat was intolerable, the nights were freezing. They slept in caves that were little more than shallow alcoves in the rock, huddling together for warmth. Damen, who was unused to the cold, shook and trembled in Laurent’s arms, every night, even once he took to sleeping between Laurent and the mountain’s face, protected by the worst of the wind. 

At the dawn of the fourth day, they reached a plateau, a flat, barren piece of rock almost at the peak of the mountain, that extended as far as the eye could see and then entered a secluded cluster of stones. 

They walked across the plain, the sun beating down upon them, then passed through the clustered rocks, where the view was shadowed and the air cooler. 

When they reached the garden, it took Laurent a moment to understand what he was seeing. They were standing among tall, swaying grass; a deep, dark green. Beyond, there was a riot of wildflowers, in ever shade from crimson to cobalt. Three women with hair as dark as night and galaxies swirling in their eyes, with skin tinged with the red and purple of the twilight, knelt among the grasses and the flowers, orange silks spread out on the ground, heads pressed together and faces turned up to the heavens, as they sang in no mortal tongue. 

But as lovely as they were, neither Laurent nor Damen spared them more than half a glance. For beyond the nymphs, the grasses, the flowers, were the trees, the golden apples gleaming among their tall, swaying branches, glittering and beckoning. 

Laurent almost took a step forward, before his gaze snagged on a cold flash on the trees’ trunk. The dragon had its silvery coils wrapped tightly over the wood, its eyes shining red among the foliage, pairs upon pairs upon pairs of eyes, so many Laurent could not count them all. 

One hundred heads. 

He had not realized what that meant, until that moment - it was not something the human mind could hold. 

At his side, Damen had gone still, and quiet, and tense. Laurent turned, subtly so that he could spare him a quick glance: he had one hand on the pommel of his sword, the other at his throat, drawing his coat of lion hide closer around himself. 

“We’ll never be able to catch it by surprise,” Damen said. “We might as well just walk into the clearing. We’ll approach it from different sides - maybe that will be enough to confuse it. The first one of us who has a clear chance at the apples should take it, and then we’ll pull back.”

“ _It has one hundred heads_ ,” Laurent said, somewhat strained. “The plan is not for us to fight it.” 

Damen looked around them, a faint frown on his brow. “What other options are there?” 

Laurent pointed to a thin, nearly invisible path that wound its way up the side of the mountain, disappearing high among the rocks. 

“Wonderful,” Damen said, “more climbing. I’d rather take the dragon.” 

“It’s a good thing I haven’t asked for your opinion, then,” Laurent replied. He crept around the garden to the path, making a point of not stopping to check whether or not Damen was following him - it took more restraint than he would’ve expected, as Damen was surprisingly light on his feet for his size, and Laurent could not hear him moving. 

He paused at the beginning of the path, to allow Damen to catch up. “After you,” he offered, gesturing. 

Damen’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know where we’re going.” 

Laurent shrugged. “Up. And you’ll realize it when we get there.”

“Even so,” Damen replied, inclining his head towards the path. 

“I think you simply enjoy the view more, like this,” Laurent said, as he began to lead the way. 

Damen chuckled behind him, quiet and warm. “Far from me to deny it.”

***

Laurent had been right; Damen did recognize it when they reached their destination. They were on the peak of the tallest mountain Damen had ever seen, the edge of it not sharp, like he might have expected, as the blade of a knife - rather, it was flat, wide enough that three men might stand upon it, abreast, and half again as long.

And upon that peak, kneeling under the relentless pressure of the weight he bore upon his shoulders, golden hair gleaming in the sun and skin glistening with sweat, was Atlas, the titan of the sky. 

“Greetings,” Laurent hailed, raising his hand. 

Atlas grunted, not even bothering to look up at them as they drew near. 

“We have a proposition for you,” Laurent continued, as though nothing were amiss.

He waited, expectantly, until Atlas did raise his head, squinting at them. “What sort of a proposition?” he asked, and his voice was the low gravelly sound of boulders crashing against each other, of rockfalls and avalanches. 

Laurent smiled. “How would you like a few moments’ reprieve from this endless task?”

Atlas just squinted harder. “What do you mean?”

“We require something,” Laurent said, “an handful of golden apples, from the garden of the Hesperides. I know you are their father and that they’ll give the apples to you. In exchange, while you go and fetch the apples, we’ll hold the sky up for you.”

Atlas looked upon Laurent, regarding him closely. “You don’t look as though you could hold up the sky,” he concluded.

“That is what my man is for,” Laurent said, clapping Damen on the back. “He’s strong as an ox. Why, he’s strangled the deathless lion that terrorized Varenne, and now wears its pelt on his shoulders as a cloak!”

Atlas turned his scrutiny to Damen. “Yes,” he said, slowly, “this one will do.”

Damen had to kneel, to receive the weight of the sky. He reached up with his hands, palms splayed, so that he could touch the expanse of the heavens above him - it was cool to the touch, as smooth as glass. 

Then Atlas slipped away, and the entire weight came crashing down upon Damen’s shoulders. For a moment, Damen could see nothing, think nothing, feel nothing save the endless, relentless agony as he was, inch by inch, pressed down towards the earth. His muscles locked, almost spasming, as he pushed back against it, but it was useless.

He was going to be crushed to death. 

Something cool touched his arm, a gentle pressure, when all other gentleness had been eclipsed. It took effort to open his eyes and look at it, and more effort still focus on it enough to realize that it was Laurent’s hand, encircling his wrist like a manacle. 

Damen looked away from it, to meet Laurent’s steady gaze. “It’ll be over soon,” Laurent promised, quiet in the space between them, “You just need to hold on for a few moments longer.” 

“Easy for you to say.” 

Laurent laughed, a little, like it had been startled out of him. “Hush,” he admonished. “Save your breath.” 

Damen half-wanted to tell him what he thought about that, but he did not, indeed, have any breath to spare to talk. He let his head hang down, so that the sweat that was running down his face would fall on the ground rather than, stinging, into his eyes. 

Delicate fingers carded through the curls at the back of his neck, and Laurent was closer, suddenly, turning Damen’s head so that he could rest it in the hollow of his shoulder, supporting Damen’s weight as Damen supported the sky. 

He did not know how much it took, until Atlas returned. Eventually, Damen heard, over the roaring in his ears, as if from a great distance, the thump of heavy, booted feet. Cold air rushed in as Laurent disentangled himself and stood.

“Thank you,” he said, extending his hand for the shining fruit in Atlas’ arms. 

Atlas took a step towards him, almost swaying, then he took two steps backwards. “Wait a moment” he said, his eyes darting around the barren peak, his mouth twisting. “Why don’t you stay here a while longer?” he asked, tightening his grip on the apples. “Just tell me where you need me to bring these and I’ll do it. I am a titan, and can travel distances much faster than a mortal man might.” 

Damen could not see Laurent’s expression from his position, but he saw the way his shoulders tightened. All was silent, for a few long moments. “Would you?” Laurent said, eventually, sweetly, “It would be so helpful.” 

“It would?” Atlas echoed, “Of course! Just tell me where, and I’ll do it.”

“Perfect,” Laurent said, the fucker. 

Damen was going to throttle him. As soon as he could figure out a way to do it without letting go of the sky, he was going to throttle him.

“However,” Laurent went on, still in that simpering tone, “he needs to adjust his cloak, to grip the sky effectively.”

Atlas was nodding along. “But to do so, he would have to let go of the sky,” he said.

Oh. Maybe Damen could stop planning out a gruesome murder for Laurent. 

“Now you see our quandary.”

“I could hold the sky,” Atlas volunteered, “while he adjusts his cloak.” 

“Wonderful!” Laurent exclaimed. “That is a very clever solution.”

Personally, Damen thought he was laying it on a bit thick, but Atlas didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss as he gripped the edge of the sky, heaving it up and allowing Damen to go free. 

He stumbled to his knees, panting. He might’ve remained there for a long time, heaving, but Laurent knelt at his side, and touched cool, gentle fingers to the nape of his neck. “Come on, now,” he whispered, “lean on me,” and helped him to his feet. 

“Where are you going?” Atlas demanded, as Laurent wrapped one arm around Damen’s waist, his other hand, again, clasped around Damen’s wrist, and started leading him down the mountain. “Trickery,” he cried.

“Do you have the apples?” Damen asked, his voice a thin whisper, as they walked away, Atlas’ bellowing curses echoing in his ears. 

Laurent let go of Damen’s arm just long enough to pat a sack hanging from his belt. “In here.” 

They were quiet for a moment, then Damen asked, “Should I be worried about the fact that we’ve just angered a titan?”

“No,” Laurent replied, smiling faintly, “I’ve read extensively into this. He doesn’t have enough power, or enough mobility, to effectively punish anyone.” 

“Did you plan for this?”

Laurent shrugged, the movement jostling Damen’s aching shoulders. “It was an eventuality.”

***

The trip back was fairly uneventful, yet Laurent found himself pervaded with a nervy sort of tension, a relentless thrumming just beneath his skin. He breathed easier once they were back within the borders of Arles, but the tension didn’t abate, not fully.

“We should probably stop for the night,” Damen said. The were in view of the keep, but the shadows were lengthening, and they were approaching the city from the south, where the view was an endless sea of swaying grass and fields. 

It was impossible to make it all the way to Arles before nightfall, but Laurent found himself hesitating. “I was looking forward to a night spent in a real bed,” he said. 

Damen shrugged. “You have a perfectly good keep not three miles from here.”

Laurent stiffened. He had forgotten about Chastillon - mostly because he was in the habit of doing everything he could in order to forget about Chastillon. 

“What is it?” Damen pressed, reaching for Laurent as though he were going to put his hand on Laurent’s shoulder, but stopping short. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Laurent lied, badly, “it’s on reduced staff,” he went on. His voice felt as if it were coming from very far away. 

“I don’t think either of us will care if the service is subpar,” Damen replied, “just think of it, one whole night without your cooking.”

“For that,” Laurent said, managing, with an effort, to dredge up some semblance of cold disdain, “I’ll have you eat from the slop bucket with the pigs.” 

Damen laughed. 

They reached Chastillon just as night was beginning to fall. There were guards, posted at the gates, who did not recognize Laurent when he approached them.

Laurent showed them his signet ring, and the guards made some distressed noises. Their captain, who _did_ know Laurent, had to be fetched from his bed. 

Then, once the captain had arrived and attested Laurent’s identity, the guards made some more distressed noises, this time because they felt they had disrespected their prince and were now worried of the repercussions. Laurent had to smile at them, pressing his hand to their shoulders, and tell them that he was pleased with their zeal. 

All this took some time, and was it required just enough attention that Laurent forgot to be apprehensive about entering the keep. He and Damen had a simple meal of bread, hard cheese and cured meats, which they took in the servants’ parlor, to renewed concerned murmurings of the entire household, rather than at the large, ornate table at which he’d eaten with his uncle. 

He was unprepared, then, for the moment when he was shown to the master’s bedroom. It was still all done up in red, and, though Laurent had sold most of the furniture when he’d inherited the keep, the bed had been nailed to the floor, so that it was still there, a dark shape at the periphery of Laurent’s vision. 

Something turned over in Laurent’s stomach, at the sight. He moved, as casually as he could manage, so that his back was to the bed, so that he was facing the window and did not have to look at it, not even by mistake. Still, he was so tense he almost startled when the servant he had been assigned started working on his laces.

He stood still long enough for the servant to open his jacket, then he waved a hand in careless dismissal. He waited, heart pounding, for the sound of boots in the corridor to have faded away, then he did his laces back up, sloppily. He gathered the satchel with the apples, and slipped out of the room. 

He wasn’t sure what chambers Damen had been assigned, but it had to be close by, as only part of the keep was kept ready at all times for Laurent’s use. He crept silently down the corridors, scanning the doors he passed by, looking for the telltale shine of a candle. 

Once he found the room, he knocked three times, in quick succession. 

Damen opened the door, blinking blearily into the darkness. “Laurent?” he asked.

Laurent did not bother giving him a response, rather electing to slip under the arm he had braced on the doorframe, and into the room. Much smaller than the master bedroom, it was somewhat shabby, with its ill-matched pieces of furniture and muted green walls. 

“Is everything alright?” Damen asked. 

“I’m sleeping here,” Laurent announced, by way of reply. 

“You have a bedroom,” Damen pointed out, flatly, “probably much more gaudy than this one, and I know how much you Northerners like that sort of thing.” 

“I’m sleeping here,” Laurent repeated. “I’m not sleeping in that bed.”

Damen was quiet for a few moments. When he next spoke, his voice was warmer. Softer. “Did it happen there?”

_Yes_. “No,” Laurent said, staring into the fireplace, at the banked flames. “When I killed him, it was in his bedroom in Arles.” 

Damen exhaled, noisily. “Why did you do it?” 

Laurent turned his head. Damen was standing against the closed door, one hand still on the handle. Laurent could not read the expression on his face - something cautious and curious and shadowed flickering in his eyes. “You are the first person in a very long time to ask me that,” he said. 

“If you’d rather not tell me-“

“No,” Laurent said, holding up his hand. “It’s fine.” He was quiet for a few moments, gathering his thoughts. “My uncle,” he began, “was not a good man.” _He liked boys. Young ones. He offered to look after me, when my father died, and he brought me here, and-_. The words stuck in his throat. “He was plotting against my brother. He hurt me.” 

There. That was as much of the truth as Laurent could stomach. 

Damen made an aborted gesture, as though he wanted to reach out and touch Laurent, but stopped himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You should have been able to trust him.” 

Laurent shrugged. “It is what it is. Auguste felt guilty that I had to be subjected to the scandal of a public trial, after I murdered our uncle. So he gave me this place,” he tried to smile, but the expression felt wrong on his features. “I’d rather wish he hadn’t. I wish I could forget that my uncle ever existed, and that I was ever enough of a fool to trust him.” 

“You were not a fool to trust him,” Damen replied. “The blame lies solely with him. Families have to place their trust on each other.”

“That does not hold for families like ours,” Laurent said, softly, “The promise of power is the greatest of corrupters. And it is so very easy for men like my uncle, only one step or two removed from the throne, to start thinking of how little it would take, to reach forward and take that power for themselves.” 

“Men like my brother, you mean?” Damen asked, with a rueful little twist of his lips. “I cannot believe that, Laurent, I’m sorry. Not all royal families are the same.” 

“You are a fool,” Laurent chided, but could not help how fond he sounded. “A noble, blind fool.” 

“And you think ill of everyone you meet,” Damen replied. “We make quite a pair, don’t you think?” 

His heart was loud as a drum in his ears. “Yes,” Laurent admitted. It felt significant, though in what way, he could not tell. Damen smiled; a slow, bright unfolding of his features that cast his whole face in a different light. 

He took a step forward.

Laurent thought, for a wild, thoughtless moment, to stand there and let himself be kissed, to lie down on the narrow bed with its dusty bedspread and let himself be touched. He did not know how it could be, but he thought there would softness in it, and gentleness. He had not dared imagine it, in all those weeks he and Damen had spent at each other’s sides, though he had not been able to help himself staring at the nimble movements of his hands, the fall of his curls, the quirk of his brows, and want. 

“It is late,” Laurent said, too quickly, the words a blurt. “We should sleep.” 

“Alright,” Damen said, “You take the bed, I’ll arrange myself a pallet.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Laurent replied. “It’s your bed. And it’s big enough for the both of us.”

Damen’s brow quirked. “Really?” he asked. 

Laurent shrugged. “We’ve lain side by side for weeks. Why stop now?”

It was different, Laurent realized as soon as he laid down and felt the mattress dip with Damen’s weight at his back. The bed was wide enough for the two of them to lie side by side and not touch, but so narrow that this put them in each other’s space, Damen’s breath warm on the back of Laurent’s neck, shifting the strands of his hair on every exhale. 

The had slept pressed close in the mountains, but it had not been like this. It had been about survival, then. 

“You’re tense as a whipcord,” Damen murmured, eventually, in the darkness. 

“I can’t sleep with you breathing down my neck.” 

“I did offer to take the floor,” Damen pointed out, his voice infuriatingly even. “I’ll turn.” 

But they could not lie back to back without touching, because Damen was too tall to lie in the bed without his feet sticking out unless he curled in on himself. Sighing, Laurent turned as well. 

He could see the outline of Damen’s back, now. The shape of his head, the glint of the moonlight on his tousled curls. It was not, Laurent realized, any better than having him at his back. 

He closed his eyes, resolutely, listening as Damen’s breathing slowly evened out in sleep. He could not tell at what moment he fell asleep, but at one point, he opened his eyes, and it was morning, and Damen’s side of the bed was rumpled and empty. 

The man himself was standing in one corner of the room, washing his face and neck in a basin. Laurent remained silent for a few moments, watching the play of the muscles in his tanned, glistening back, before he stood, wordlessly, and started putting his clothes back on. 

They were in Arles before the day was out, and he knelt in front of his brother in the gilded hall, the court whispering at his back, and presented the gleaming treasure of the Hesperides. 

Auguste tilted his head to the side, his fingers running over the smooth, shining gold as though he could not help himself - which he could not. The golden apples were irresistible to mortals. “Guion,” he said, firmly, “I do believe you owe something to my brother.” 

Guion went scarlet. “Your majesty-“ he started, but Auguste turned a cold glance on him, and he quieted. 

The medallion of office was heavy, when Auguste settled it around Laurent’s neck. A good weight, one that felt right. And it felt righter still, when he straightened, and Auguste smiled at him, just slightly, a mixture of pride and fond exasperation in his eyes, and handed him back the satchel with the apples. “I’ve really no use for these,” he said. 

Laurent took it. He considered settling it against his hip, where it’d hung for weeks, a weight he’d long since grown used to. 

He turned to Damen, thrusting the satchel out with less grace than he’d customarily have shown. “I’ve no use for these, either,” Laurent said. “Consider this a payment for service rendered, and an offer of my friendship.”

Damen smiled, in that full, bright way of his that transformed his whole face. Their hands brushed, when he took the satchel, a touch Laurent felt all the way to his toes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter!! If you did, let me know in the comments!
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr, [here](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com)
> 
> The chapter title comes from [this](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/apples-hesperides) poem by Amy Lowell


	5. devoured by secret fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up, there's vaguely (very vaguely) explicit canonical straight sex in this chapter

“We’ve received a missive from Delfeur,” Laurent said, upon entering his chambers.

Damen was already there, with a bottle of wine and a goblet in his hand - it had become something of a routine for them, in the months since they’d returned from the garden of the Hesperides, to meet in Laurent’s chambers after dinner. Laurent would rant about the uselessness of his brother’s council as Damen drank his wine and interjected with the occasional flat, sardonic comment. 

Damen, who had been absorbed staring out of the window in Laurent’s rooms, turned his head slowly, sluggishly, as one waking from a dream. “I think you mean Delpha,” he said, almost absently. 

Laurent shrugged, crossing the room. “Call it however you like,” he said, shortly. “They’re asking for help.”

This seemed to get Damen’s attention, at last. “Me?” 

“Me,” Laurent corrected. At Damen’s flat, disbelieving stare, he added, “Well, not me, precisely. My brother - who in turn is sending me.” 

“That seems improbable,” said Damen, with more caution and diplomacy than he might’ve employed in months past. Close to a year’s friendship with Laurent, it seemed, had had an effect on him. “Nikandros dislikes your sort,” he added, completely spoiling the diplomatic effort of the first sentence. Laurent sighed.

“Northerns?” 

“Yes, in general,” Damen said, “and Arles in particular.” 

“Lovely,” Laurent commented, collapsing in a half-sprawl onto the couch, arm braced on the backrest and long legs extended in front of him, his still-booted feet slipping off the silk. The second time it happened, Damen put his hand on Laurent’s ankle to steady him, and left it there.

He could feel the warmth of the touch through the leather. 

“In any case, they are asking us,” Laurent said, after he’d been silent a beat too long. “I assume they’re asking everyone, they seem to be in desperate straits.” 

Damen’s hand tightened on his leg. When Laurent looked up at him, his brows were drawn down into half a scowl. 

“It seems your friend’s priests forgot to sacrifice to Artemis and now a boar is ravaging the countryside,” Laurent went on. “They’re beseeching someone come and slay the beast.” 

“And your brother is sending you?” 

“There’s hardly anyone more qualified for that task in Arles, don’t you think?”

“There’s me,” Damen pointed out.

“Yes,” Laurent agreed, “but my brother does not have the power to send you anywhere.” 

Damen did not say anything. He just quirked his head to the side, looking at Laurent straight on. His hand was moving on Laurent’s leg, in slow, even circles, from Laurent’s ankle to his calf and back again. 

“I was thinking you might want to come with me,” Laurent went on. “Nikandros is your friend, and Delfeur is on your way.” 

“My way?” Damen asked. 

“Your year in my service is almost up,” Laurent pointed out, quietly. It was the first time he’d said it, in these past few days, although he’d been aware of the calendar winding down with a sense of mounting sorrow. He’d come to rely on Damen’s presence, these past months. He had become used to having someone - someone who wasn’t Auguste - at his side, an unwavering ally, a friend. 

Something more, perhaps, someday. 

“So it is,” Damen said, tightly. 

“You’ll be traveling southwards soon. And I’m going to Delfuer. We might as well go together.” 

“I wouldn’t have expected you to be so keen to travel with Kastor,” Damen said, patting Laurent’s leg and then letting go of it. 

Laurent froze. 

“You promised you’d free my brother as well as me,” Damen added.

“I know,” Laurent said, “I hadn’t forgotten. I just assumed he could go on ahead - after all, Ios will already be providing its crown price in aid of Nikandros, it would be unreasonable to expect it to offer up any more princes to the hunt.”

“Yes,” Damen said, flatly, “no one would ever put both princes of Ios in jeopardy at once.”

“Oh, hush,” Laurent said, taking advantage of the proximity of his boot to Damen’s flank to kick him. Lightly - if asked he’d have claimed he couldn’t have gotten enough leverage to deliver a real blow. “Everyone knows I’m not reasonable.” 

“So you’re not,” Damen said, “Kastor is still coming with us. He’s known Nikandros as long as I have, he’ll want to help.”

Laurent bit his tongue against his desire to say exactly what he thought of Kastor’s help. “Don’t expect me to be civil to him.” 

“I wasn’t. And it won’t be an issue. He doesn’t like you, either.”

The ride to Delfeur in Kastor’s company was about as pleasant as Laurent had anticipated. Kastor spoke to Laurent as little as possible, and he poorly concealed his resentment towards his brother. Watching their short, tense interactions, the little hope Laurent still held that Damen was right about Kastor guttered and died like a flame in the wind. 

“He’s not always like that,” Damen said, at Laurent’s censoring glances. “This year has worn on him. He feels I’ve betrayed him by being your friend.” 

“I pray you’re right,” Laurent said, swallowing bile. “But please, be careful.” 

And Damen smiled, and tucked a few strands of flyaway hair behind Laurent’s ear, and bent down to press his mouth to Laurent’s brow, and Laurent felt like he was teetering on the edge of a precipice. 

Delfeur was only about two weeks’ journey from Arles, but their delegation was still among the last to arrive. Laurent looked around, as they rode up to the keep of Marlas, seeing the passage of the boar carved in the destruction of the countryside, in the black drapes shrouding the windows. 

Laurent had been this far south a few times before, though not often. Delfeur had been ruled by allies of Laurent’s family for close to a century, until Theomedes had taken advantage of the political turmoil after the death of Laurent’s father and the murder of his uncle and installed one of his own men on the throne of Marlas. 

Nikandros met them in the great hall. A tall man, he was a few years older than Laurent, about Damen’s age, with close-cropped hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He acknowledged Damen first, inclining his head and reaching forward to clasp his hands. “My friend,” he said, warmly, “it is good to see that you are well.”

“It is good to see you, too” Damen replied, equally warm. “May I introduce the crown prince of Arles?” 

Nikandros looked at Laurent over Damen’s shoulder. His brow furrowed. “Greetings,” he said, stiffening. “We appreciate Arles sending its prince. We haven’t always been allies.” 

“My family as been a loyal ally of Delfeur for centuries,” Laurent replied. “Long before Theomedes bribed your way to the crown.” 

Nikandros’ mouth tightened. “He has a mouth on him,” he said, to Damen. 

Laurent bristled, and Damen said, smiling, “He is something of an acquired taste.” 

“Nikandros,” Kastor said. He had fallen behind as they’d entered the hall, as it was appropriate that true-born royalty be acknowledged first. “It has been a long time.” 

“Too long,” Nikandros nodded, but his smile was stiff, his hands clenched. A bit more obvious than what was wise, perhaps, but Laurent took heart in the realization that Damen had at least one devoted ally, beside Laurent himself. 

“The other hunters are already gathered in the gardens,” Nikandros went on, “if you’d like to go and meet them.”

***

The other hunters were half-familiar; the scions of noble families, or heroes in the making, the sort of people songs were being written about.

Laurent had not met them all before, but he could place them, for the most part. Makedon of the notched belt, getting on in years and still strong as a bear; Torveld of Patras, come over the mountain pass; Enguerran, who slew the hydra. And, half-shadowed and slim, towards the back of the hall, a well-known figure. 

He made his way over to her, taking her hands in his and squeezing. “Kashel,” he said, with real warmth. “It is so very good to see you, my friend.” 

She smiled, her eyes dark and shining, and threw her arms around his shoulders. “You’re still thin as a twig,” she said, her tone half reproachful, as she pressed herself against him. 

“I’m afraid I’ll never have the size to breed great warriors,” he said, burying his face in her hair. She smelled of horse and leather, the way she always did; of grass and wind and freedom, and holding her in his arms brought him back to that single, glorious summer when he’d gotten to have a friend who wasn’t Auguste. “Though I hear my eyelashes are very long.” 

“Not enough to recommend you,” she said, punching him in the shoulder, and not gently. “Will you not introduce me to your friend?” she asked, looking round at Damen. 

“Damianos of Akielos,” Laurent obliged. “This is Kashel. She’s Vaskian.”

Damen’s gaze immediately snapped to her chest, though he tried to glance away quickly and disguise the fact that he’d looked at all. Which made it all the worse, really. 

“Yes, I still have both of them,” Kashel said, gesturing to her breasts. “We don’t actually cut one off, it’s only a story.” 

“Of course,” Damen said, “I wasn’t-“

“I can show you later, if you’d like,” Kashel went on. 

“Really,” Laurent said, “that’s unsubtle, even for you.” 

“I thought the two of you were… involved,” Damen said.

“Northerners don’t lie with the opposite sex outside of the bonds of marriage,” Laurent pointed out. 

“They’re not supposed to,” Damen conceded, “That doesn’t mean they actually adhere to it. Especially when it’s such an arbitrary rule in the first place.”

“We’re friends,” Kashel said. “No obligation to each other, at all.” 

Damen looked at Laurent, his brows drawn up. “And how did a prince of the blood from Arles meet a Vaskian huntress?”

“How do you know she’s an huntress?” Laurent asked.

“She’s here, isn’t she?” 

Keshel’s mouth curved. “I suppose I am.”

Damen grinned back at her, as she tilted her head to the side and let the riot of her curls slip over her bare shoulder. She looked back at him lazily, languorously, through slitted eyes. 

“She came to Arles to challenge me,” Laurent said. His voice rang too loud in their corner of the hall. A blunder. 

“For your hand?” Damen asked. His gaze slid over to Laurent, but slowly, as though he’d had to drag himself away from Kashel through sheer force of will. Laurent swallowed. 

_You’ve no right to be jealous,_ he thought, chiding. _You know you can’t have him._.

“Yes,” he said. “Though she didn’t go through with it.”

“I could’ve won,” Kashel added, with lazy confidence. 

“Debatable,” Laurent replied, the words almost rote. It was a well-hashed argument, between them, one neither had sought to dispel in the only way possible: with a race.

“Why didn’t you?” Damen asked. “Go through with the challenge, I mean.” 

“I didn’t want him,” Kashel said.

Damen looked back at Laurent, his eyes shining. “That’s a first.” 

Laurent laughed. “I don’t have the size to breed great warriors, apparently,” he said. 

“Not like you do,” Kashel added, reaching out to take Damen’s hand in hers; warm-eyed, she swayed closer first, then tugged on his wrist to guide him with her. 

Damen seemed to hesitate, looking back at Laurent with wide eyes. Laurent shrugged. _Do what you will_ , the gesture meant, because Laurent couldn’t trust himself to say the words aloud. 

Damen was not his to keep, and he’d do well to remember that.

***

After, Damen let himself lay on his back, drifting pleasantly, the sweat cooling on his skin.

“Would you like to go again?” Kashel had drawn herself to an half-sitting position, her tangled hair brushing her shoulders and her breasts. Her eyes were brown, shining with reflected firelight. She’d been sweet, in his arms. She’d sighed, and arched against him, and kissed him with soft lips. 

He couldn’t help but hate himself, a little, for looking at her and wishing she were someone else. 

“I-“ he said, unsure how he wanted to continue. Was it that great a crime, to desire to be touched? Laurent would not fuck him. Laurent had spent months looking at him with cloudless blue eyes, and leaning his shoulder against Damen’s chest, and talking with him through the nights. 

It was almost enough to make Damen believe they were friends and nothing more, save for moments when Laurent looked at him, across a table, across a room, with curved lips and heated eyes. 

“You?” Kashel prompted. She laid herself back down, her chin braced on a calloused hand, fingers digging into the soft meat of her cheek. With her free hand, she reached out to trace the counters of Damen’s body, down his chest. 

“You’ll have to give me a while longer,” he said, “if you want me to do you justice.”

Her eyes shone. “I think we can find something to do to pass the time,” she commented, her legs falling apart almost idly. The hand that had been caressing Damen’s stomach closed around his fingers, as she took them in his own and guided them to the core of her, warm and slick under Damen’s hand. 

He smiled, as she arched into his touch, and swallowed her moan with a kiss.

***

Though the hunters set out reasonably early, the sun was already high in the sky, its golden light washing over the stones of the fort of Marlas. Laurent saddled his horse quietly, far from where Damen was handling his bay and talking with Nikandros and his brother.

Laurent watched, surreptitiously, as Damen threw his head back, laughing, the first rays of the sun catching and winking among his dark curls and on the pin at his shoulder. His lion-skin cloak, thick and golden, swayed gently in the breeze. 

He must’ve felt Laurent watching, because he turned his head to look in his direction, his brows knitted together. Laurent raised his hand, forcing a smile. 

Damen returned the gesture, white teeth flashing in the sun. He was too far away for Laurent to see the way his cheek dimpled, but it scarcely mattered; he knew what Damen smiling looked like, up close. 

_He’s in good humor because he’s spent the night fucking Keshel_ , Laurent reminded himself. He’d do well to remember that, and he’d do well to remember that this, soon, would be goodbye. 

Damen was to return to white-cliffed Ios, to his lovers and his friends, and Laurent was to return to cold halls of Arles, and sustain himself on memories. He was grateful, when Nikandros mounted his horse and sounded his horn, signaling the start of the hunt, before Damen could come over and talk to him.

Laurent dug his heels in the flank of his mare, easing her in an easy trot and guiding her into a gallop, as his hunting horn thumped over his chest and the wind streamed through his hair, bitterly cold against his face. At the sides of the hunt, the dogs yelped and growled, straining at their leashes. 

Laurent lost himself to the simple physicality of it, to the sensation of his horse’s rolling gain beneath him and the sun beating down. This was why, he told himself later, he didn’t notice that Damen’s horse was riderless until he heard the horns raising the alarm.

***

Damen blinked languorously, as one waking from a dream. Somewhere far off, the dogs were baying, but it was quiet in the clearing. Peaceful. The trees were heavy with dark, shining leaves, and they cast long shadows on the swaying silver grass.

“So you have turned your eye to a favorite of mine,” the maiden said. Tall and lithe, she was dressed simply, in a white tunic that skimmed her knees. 

“Where’s the rest of the hunt?” Even as he spoke, Damen wasn’t sure she had been part of the hunt in the first place. She did not have the type of features one forgot easily; beautiful, but in the way a well-balanced blade is beautiful, sparse grace in every line of her. 

She tilted her head to the side, smiling indulgently. The fall of her hair shifted over her shoulder with the movement, silver winking among the black curls. “The hunt’s wherever I am,” She replied, running a pale finger over the curved lines of her bow. 

She looked at him, her eyes like twin moons, shining pale and unsettling from the dark contours of her face. 

He recognized her, then, by that one inhuman thing in her maiden’s face. “Goddess,” he murmured. Another man might’ve prostrated himself, or averted his gaze. But Damen had slain the lion of Varenne, had held the sky on his back, and he had no fear of divinity. 

“I have come to deliver a warning, and a reminder,” Artemis said, her mouth twitching. “His oaths are sworn.” 

“Whose oaths?” 

She tipped her head to the side. “And here I was starting to think you were clever. Perhaps not.”

“Laurent’s,” Damen said. It wasn’t a question. “What oaths did he swear?” 

“That,” Artemis said, “you must ask him.”

Damen opened his mouth to reply, to press, but she reached for him and pressed her fingers to his cheek. Her touch was warm. 

He did not know why he had been expecting it to be cold.

“Go now,” she said, sweet as any lover. “And spill some blood in my name.” 

She took a step back, her figure dissolving like moonlight with the dawn, leaving Damen alone in the clearing. 

He looked around, straining his ears for the sounds of the hunt, but the woods had gone silent and cold. He was alone, his horse gone. He still had his weapons and his cloak, and that was something. The hunting horn was heavy around his neck, and that was something, too. He took it in his palms, blew through it, three times in quick succession - the agreed upon signal if one needed help. He stood still, listening to the echo disappear, unanswered. 

No help was coming. He stood in the clearing a while longer, dithering, looking at the darkness among the trees, then he picked a direction at random and started walking. 

He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone, before he saw the approaching figure; a rider in blue, golden hair gleaming in the sun. He recognized Laurent long before he was close enough to see his face. 

“Decided to go for a promenade?” Laurent asked, once he’d come within shouting distance. He was smiling, thinly, the skin around his eyes drawn tight. _You scared me_ , he didn’t say. It did not matter. Damen heard it anyways. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, as Laurent drew his horse to a standstill, close enough that Damen could reach out and touch his thigh. He did. The fabric of Laurent’s breeches was dusty under his palm, sun-warmed, his leg firm and supple beneath it. Laurent flushed, bracing the hand that wasn’t holding the reins on Damen’s shoulder, and for a moment, Damen almost thought he’d lean down and kiss him.

He’d sworn an oath to Artemis. 

“Laurent,” Damen said, “Did you take an oath of chastity?”

Laurent blinked, pulling back. “You want to talk about this _now_?”

“Well, I’ve just been waylaid by a goddess. And you had an entire year to volunteer the information.” 

“I didn’t realize I owed you that knowledge,” Laurent said, drawing himself tightly. 

“You owe me nothing,” Damen said. The words tasted like ash on his tongue, for all that they were true. “I will not press my attentions on you, if they are unwanted.”

“They are not,” Laurent said, “unwanted. I did swear an oath.” 

“Oh,” Damen said. He caught Laurent’s hand in his, as it slid from his hair, and held it to his mouth. The skin was slightly rough, rubbed raw by the wind. 

“It was foolish,” Laurent said, “I needed an assurance that my brother’s council would not overturn my challenge, so I swore at the altar to Artemis that I would only willingly lie with someone who can outrun me.” 

“When this is over,” Damen said, “I would go back to Arles, and challenge you again. If you’d like that.” 

Laurent smiled, slow and brilliant, like a dawning sun, his hand twisting in Damen’s grip to interlace their fingers. It was a golden moment, glorious as any in Damen’s life. 

Then, Laurent’s mare startled, swerving violently to the side, away from Damen, tossing its head, hooves skidding on the hard-packed ground. Damen swayed, barely regaining his balance in time to avoid falling on his face.

“What’s the matter with you?” Laurent scolded, his hand at his horse’s neck, trying to soothe it. 

Something was tearing through the undergrowth. Twigs and branches were snapping with sounds like thunder-claps, birds squawking and taking flight. “Laurent,” Damen said.

“Yes. I heard it.” Laurent was pale, his face drawn. 

They had one horse between them, a spear and two swords. Laurent’s bow and arrows, slung over his shoulder. Damen had no idea if he was any good with them: he had never seen him use them. “Laurent,” he repeated, “you need to go. Turn your horse and make for the rest of the hunt.”

Laurent pressed his lips together. “If you think I’m going anywhere,” he said, “you’re a fool, and you don’t know me at all.” 

“We can’t fight the boar, not alone.” 

“Watch me,” Laurent said. Then: “I’ll dismount. You get on the horse.”

“ _What_?”

“I’m faster than you, on foot, you know that.” 

“I still don’t see how that’ll help you,” Damen protested. “You’re not faster than a boar.” 

“It doesn’t matter, just do as I say,” Laurent replied, dismounting. “Quickly, now, we don’t have much time.” He pressed his spear into Damen’s hand and nocked an arrow in his bow. 

The boar broke through the underbrush, flanks steaming and mouth foaming, tall as a horse at the shoulder, hide as thick as armor, covered in coarse black bristles. Its tusks were stained with old blood, long as sharp as daggers. 

Laurent’s arrow looked pitiful, when compared to the creature. Still, Laurent held his ground, drawing back his elbow and firing his bow. The shot went wide. Laurent grew paler still, but his hands stayed steady as he nocked another arrow, drew back and fired. It sunk into the boar’s paw, deeply enough to draw a thin rivulet of blood, and the creature screamed, the sound like stones being rubbed together, and charged.

Damen sunk his heels into the mare’s flanks, though she neighed and shied, and urged her to gallop the short distance that separated him from Laurent and the boar, though there was very little he could do, save physically putting himself between them. 

Laurent had stayed still, and had he been anyone else, Damen would’ve thought him frozen in fear. He had nocked one last arrow in his bow. His eyes were sharp, focused, a bright, cloudless blue, as he looked at the bow and loosened the bolt that embedded itself almost to the fletching in one of the boar’s black eyes. 

Laurent did not stay to watch it collide. He leapt out of the way, but was, for once in his life, not quick enough. One of the boar’s massive tusks sunk into his shoulder, and he was lifted off his feet and tossed across the forest path like a rag doll, his blood spreading in the wind like fine crimson mist. 

If he screamed, Damen did not hear him, the sound lost to the wind and the pounding of the blood in his own ears. 

The boar shrieked again, swerving in pain and confusion, the shaft of Laurent’s final arrow still protruding from its eye. Damen braced himself, spear held ready. 

The tip sunk into the boar’s meaty neck, though it did not go deep enough to kill beast right away. Blood sprayed as it twitched and shook, half-crazed with pain and trying to dislodge Damen, until he braced the butt of the spear on his shoulder and forced it in deeper, and deeper still. 

Once the boar had stopped twitching, Damen ran over to where Laurent lay curled on the ground and cradled him into his arms, taking the lion’s pelt from his back to wrap it around Laurent’s trembling shoulders. 

“It will be fine,” Damen tried to reassure him, examining with gentle fingers the wound the boar’s tusk had carved open in Laurent’s shoulder. It was wide, its edges jagged. Blood was gushing from it, an endless red river, but the cut was too high to have hit any vital organs, and the creature had, thankfully, missed Laurent’s jugular. “Don’t be afraid.” Help was coming. Already he could hear the approach of the rest of the hunt, the baying of the hounds and the clatter of the horses’ hooves. 

“I’m not afraid,” Laurent said, glaring up at Damen with glazed blue eyes, face pale and jaw clenched. He pressed his own hand to his shoulder, to slow the flow of blood. 

“Of course not,” said Damen gently, and ran his fingers through Laurent’s matted golden hair. His touch left crimson streaks in its wake. He bent his head and kissed those bloodied curls, feeling Laurent shudder and shake in his embrace, with the shock of his injury, and the pain of it. 

He broke away after a few moment, and Laurent brought up clammy, cold fingers to trace the jut of his cheekbone, the line of his nose, the hollow below his lips. He cupped Damen’s cheek in his palm, and drew him down again. 

It was a terrible kiss. Laurent’s teeth were chattering so badly that he almost bit Damen’s lip clean through, and he stank of blood, and fear, and sweat. And yet it was so sweet, the sweetest thing in Damen’s life. 

He disentangled himself, but kept Laurent’s face close to his, so that he could press his lips over every bit of his skin he could reach: the corner of his mouth, the softness of his cheeks, the arch of his fair brows, the hollows beneath his eyes. 

He tasted salt there.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

“I’m not crying,” Laurent said, but his voice was thick with it.

“Of course not,” Damen murmured, again.

“Really, I’m not,” Laurent insisted, “it’s a completely involuntary response to the pain of having my shoulder torn out by a lumbering beast.” 

It was something of a relief to see him restored to his usual verboseness, after his close brush with death. Damen held him close, and dried his tears.

Together, they waited until the rest of the hunt came sweeping in around them.

***

Laurent was swarmed by the rest of the hunters, laid out on a pallet and attended by the physician Nikandros had brought along on the hunt. Damen stayed to watch the proceedings long enough to see them cut Laurent’s jacket off and peel the sodden linen from his bloodied skin, before he staggered back, stomach lurching.

The wound wasn’t all that bad, really; Laurent would be fine. It still felt profoundly wrong to see him laid there, pale and sweating, all his careful composure gone. The hunters closed around him, blocking him from Damen’s line sight. 

A few others had moved to handle the carcass of the boar, skinning it and removing its tusk. “The trophy’s Laurent’s,” Damen found himself saying. “He drew first blood.”

A hand clasped his shoulder. “But you killed it. If you don’t want the trophy, you could always leave it to your family.” 

“Kastor,” Damen said, turning. “You know I can’t do that.” 

“I know. His pretty face has clouded your judgement.” His brother looked at him for a moment longer, then his features softened and he smiled, something sad and rueful twisting at the edges of his mouth. His hand moved, from Damen’s shoulder, to brush away a lock of hair from his forehead; a sweet gesture, reminiscent of Damen’s childhood. “You always get yourself caught up in the worst scrapes, little brother.” 

“I wish I had been the one injured,” Damen admitted. His voice was thick. 

“Come,” Kastor said, “walk with me.” 

They went deeper into the trees, where the world was shadowed. Damen felt strangely empty as they walked, his gaze fixed on the path ahead but almost unseeing, Kastor’s hand, tucked against his elbow, felt like the only thing anchoring him to the world. Damen turned his head, once, to look at his brother’s profile.

His face was drawn, his jaw set. He walked oddly, something cradled against his chest with the hand that wasn’t leading Damen. 

“Kastor?” Damen asked, slowly coming out of his reverie. They had reached the clearing where Artemis had showed herself to him. “Where are we going?” 

Kastor stopped. They were standing very close together, in the dim light of the clearing, and when Kastor reached out his hand, thought for a moment Damen that his brother would embrace him. 

His gaze snagged on the tip of the massive boar’s tusk just an instant before Kastor plunged it into his stomach. 

It hurt. It hurt in the blinding way of things that are not meant to be borne, it hurt like nothing had since the day he had knelt down to receive the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. He crumpled to the ground, Kastor’s hands warm and dry at his back, supporting him as he fell. 

“I’m sorry, Damen,” he was saying. “I wish you hadn’t brought me to this point.”

“Fuck you,” Damen managed. His voice was thick, again, his mouth full of the coppery tang of blood. “Why?”

Kastor’s hand tightened in the fabric at Damen’s shoulder, painfully. “You know why. I was always meant to be king, until you came along and stole the throne from me. I tried to solve it by taking Arles, but the little bitch won the race and then you allied yourself with him. All the glory, all the power, you hog to yourself.”

“Father will have to execute you,” Damen choked out. “It will break his heart.” 

“Father will never know,” Kastor said. His eyes were fevered. “They will all think you were injured during the hunt. They will write songs about your death, and I will have the crown. That’s not too bad a trade.”

Damen laughed; it was a rough, hacked-out sound, awful even to his own ears. “You gone mad,” he said. He would die here, he realized, as cold spread over his limbs and darkness threatened at the edges of his visions, he would die here, bleeding out onto the grass that a goddess had tread upon, killed by his own brother after he had survived the greatest monsters of the age.

At the edge of his vision, almost lost to the encroaching darkness, there was a flicker of gold. 

Kastor followed Damen’s gaze, and he turned. Damen could not see his expression, but he heard the way Kastor’s voice grew warm with satisfaction. “If it isn’t the little whore.”

Laurent stood across from them, pale and drawn, blood darkening the hastily wrapped bandages at his shoulders, nothing but a gleaming knife in his hand, but was straight-backed for all that. “If it isn’t the pathetic bastard,” he replied. His voice was terrible. “What is it? Was being beaten to the mark again too much for you?”

“I’m glad I lost that race, you conniving bitch,” he did not sound pleased any longer, just angry. “I heard that if a man sticks his cock in you, it’ll freeze and fall off.” 

Laurent cocked his head to the side, and stepped closer. “You’re not very consistent,” he said, blandly, “what am I, frigid or a whore?” 

“Dead, is what you are,” Kastor said, and bent down over Damen to yank the boar’s tusk out of his abdomen. The world went white-hot with agony, and he lost all sense of who and where he was, long enough that when he regained his consciousness, both Kastor and Laurent had moved.

He could see them both in profile; Kastor a, hulking, snarling figure, the bloodied tusk gleaming red in his hand, and Laurent across from him, white-faced and panting, leaning against a tree trunk to stand upright, his injured arm braced against an half-broken branch.

Kastor lunged for him, and Laurent held his ground, the small, ineffectual knife held up against his body as if it could shield him. And when Kastor drew closer, Laurent leaned his weight on his injured arm and the branch under him splintered with a crack. 

Damen expected him to fall, then, but Laurent stayed upright, barely swaying when the whole weight of the branch was transferred to his injured arm, though it had to be putting enormous strain on his shoulder. He bared his teeth, and, when Kastor came close enough, he swung and brought the branch down, hard, on Kastor’s temple.

Kastor stumbled to his knees, obviously dazed, dropping his weapon, and Laurent met Damen’s eyes over his head. “Damen,” he begged, “don’t look.”

But Damen was powerless to look away, as Laurent pushed Kastor down into the dirt, and slowly, methodically, slit his throat. When it was done, Laurent, hands still drenched in his brother’s blood, crawled across the clearing to put pressure on Damen’s wound.

“Listen to me,” he snarled, through clenched teeth. Even pale and terrified and covered in blood and mud, he was beautiful enough to break Damen’s heart. “If you die here, I will descend into Hades, and bring your spirit back, and then murder you again.” He grabbed one of Damen’s hands, then the other, and put them over the wound in place of his own. “Do you hear me?” he asked. His voice was thick with tears, even if his eyes were clear. “You’re not allowed to die here.” When his hands slackened, Laurent pushed one of his on top, hard enough that it sent a sharp throb of pain through Damen’s core. “Keep the pressure,” he snapped. 

He yanked the hunting horn from around Damen’s neck - he was no longer wearing his, Damen realized. They’ve must have removed it when they were treating him. Laurent blew through the horn three times, sharply, the sound to signal the need for medical attention. Then he paused, and did it again, and again and again. 

When Damen lost consciousness, it was to the sound of the answering horns of the other hunters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter!! If you did, let me know in the comments!
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr, [here](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com)
> 
> The chapter title is from [this](http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph8.htm) Ovid translation


	6. if he not be the man for winning

Damen was first aware of the pain: a dull, persistent ache that promised to dissolve into agony the moment he would try to move. Then, slowly, as one waking from a deep slumber, he gained awareness of the softness of the bed, the delicate weight of the blankets, the sharp tang of the sea in the air, the gentle touch of the breeze on his face. 

There were seagulls screeching, high and reedy, outside his window, and for a moment he thought he was back in Ios, in the chambers where he’d spent his childhood and his youth. 

He opened his eyes slowly, accustoming himself to the light little by little. He was laying on his back, in the rooms he had been given in the fort at Marlas, and where he had not slept save for the first night. 

They bore the evident handprint of northern architecture - the walls thick and sturdy, built to keep the heat inside during the winter months, the wooden slats on the floor in place of tiles - but it was clear that the south had encroached upon the space, in the years since Nikandros had become king: the walls were plastered white and frescoed with garlands and simple scenes of daily life. Mainly pastoral in nature: shepherds and shepherdesses leading their flocks, peasants tending to the grain, men and women dancing in a vat of grapes to make wine, but there was a mural on the far wall that showed an old man on a fishing boat, a net overbrimming with silvery fish in his gnarled hands. 

“Damen?” came the question from his bedside, “are you awake?”

It took him a moment to place the voice, a testament to his fatigue and confusion. “Nikandros?” He turned his head on the pillow and beheld his friend. Nikandros sat in a chair at his bedside, his chiton wrinkled and a few days’ beard on his cheeks. There were deep, dark hollows circles his eyes, and his lips were chipped and flaking. “Are you well, my friend?”

Nikandros laughed hollowly. “Am _I_ well? You’ve spent the last week hovering between life and death, and now you ask me if I’m well?”

“I’m sorry to have worried you.”

“If Laurent and I had not noticed you were missing - or even if we’d assumed you were amusing yourself in the undergrowth with some pretty girl - you’d have been dead.”

“I know,” Damen said, “I’m sorry. But he was my brother. How could I have known his treachery?” 

“Perhaps by heeding the dozens of warning I gave you? Or the ones Laurent gave you, for that matter!”

Despite everything, Damen found himself smiling. “I see you’ve come to like him.” 

“We’ve bonded over your utter stupidity,” Nikandros said, darkly. 

“How is he?” Damen asked, recalling, suddenly, that Laurent too had been injured. 

“Better than you,” Nikandros replied, “though he aggravated his shoulder in the fight with Kastor. He’s spent the past few days laid up in bed, but he’s getting restless, the last I heard of him. Mainly because his extended bedrest is due to my desire to keep him from leaving Marlas.”

“You not wanting Laurent to leave?” Damen asked, with a small grin. “That is new.”

“He was found over the murdered body of one of the princes of Ios, while the heir to the crown hovered between life and death. You have to see how it looks. Your cities have never been friends, and he does not have the best of reputations.”

“He saved my life,” Damen said, tightly.

“I know that,” Nikandros reassured him, “and I’m sure your father will be overjoyed to hear it, as this situation is a diplomatic nightmare in the making. Theomedes cannot let the murder of Kastor go unanswered, but-”

“Auguste won’t take kindly to any move against his brother, even if justified. And meanwhile here you are, caught between the anvil and the hammer.” 

Nikandros sighed. “Exactly. Hence Laurent’s extended bedrest.” 

“I’m sorry to have brought trouble to your doorstep.”

“Don’t be,” Nikandros said. “I’m glad it was at my doorstep, and that you had someone to protect you.”

“But you and Laurent are friends, now? Or you will be, as soon as this mess with Kastor will be solved?” Damen asked, with half a grin. 

The thought that their friends and households might intermingle was pleasing to him. It fit nicely with the fantasies he entertained, of inviting Laurent to Ios, of showing him the white cliffs and the fathomless sea, so blue it could make a man weep, and taking him by the hand and showing him Ishtima, and the beach were Aphrodite had risen from sea foam and first set her feet to shore. 

Nikandros sighed. “I’d like him more if I thought I’d be seeing the back of him soon.”

“The back of him is rather magnificent,” Damen agreed. 

“That is not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I know. You’ll understand when you get to know him,” Damen promised, perhaps with unwarranted optimism. 

“I have seen him,” Nikandros replied, “I understand. Just… Damen, promise me you won’t let your cock make the decisions instead of your head.”

“When have I ever done that?” When Nikandros opened his mouth, with the look of a man about to deliver an itemized list, Damen hurried to add: “And he may be a beauty, but that’s not the reason I want him.” _Want_ was too small a word for the breadth of what Damen felt for him. But it felt wrong to say so to Nikandros before he spoke to Laurent. “He is strong, and true and intelligent. You would be hard-pressed to find a better man.” 

“He has also developed a reputation for having all his suitors killed.” 

“Only the unwanted ones,” Damen said, “and I do not intend to be unwanted.” 

The next few days were a haze. Nikandros was a constant in his rooms, growing paler as the day went on, the hollows underneath his eyes growing darker. “You should rest,” Damen chided him, “You do nothing but scold me for not taking care of myself, and then you do not take your own advice.” 

The other constant was the veritable regiment of physician Nikandros had hired to handle his recovery. Damen was not as appreciative of this care as another man might’ve been; he disliked physicians, especially palace-trained ones, as they were shrill, fussy creatures, who spent a good portion of their time in Damen’s chambers wringing their hands and arguing over the treatment of a wound that would’ve healed perfectly well without their meddling. 

Once, he woke to find Laurent in his rooms, in the chair next to his bed that was usually occupied by Nikandros. He sat with his back straight, one fine-boned wrist balanced on the armrest, his blue eyes unreadable. He was dressed in riding leathers.

“I suppose I must thank you,” Damen said. His voice was hoarse. 

“No.” Laurent shook his head, something tight and sorrowful in his expression. “Never thank me. Not for that.”

Damen took one moment to study him. He was gaunt, in the way of one who has been recovering from an illness, something brittle and sharp in the lines of his face, his lips thin and colorless - worse than what might’ve been expected of someone who’d been laid up with a shoulder wound, even a serious one. 

“Are you leaving?” Damen asked. 

“No. But Nikandros let me go for a ride, to make it clear that I’m not a prisoner here, just a guest who’s forbidden from leaving the premises.” He paused for a moment, his expression tight “Auguste has been sick with worry.” 

“I’m sorry,” Damen said, but Laurent dismissed it with an impatient gesture of his hand. 

“Are you sure you should be riding, already, though?” Damen pressed, realizing the futility of his question even as the words passed his lips. With Laurent, there were only two possible answers to _are you certain this is a good idea?_ , and they were either _yes_ or _no, but I’ll do it anyway_. 

“Yes, mother,” Laurent said, but it was fond. “I am fine.” He laid the back of his fingers against Damen’s forehead, blessedly cool. “Unlike you,” he added. “I think you’re running a fever again.” He fussed over Damen for a few moments, touching different parts of his forehead. “I’ll call the healers.”

Damen held him back with a hand on his wrist. “The healers,” he said, “do nothing but poke and prod” 

“And keep your worthless carcass alive,” Laurent sighed, more exasperation than bite in his voice.

“At least wait a few minutes. I feel like I haven’t had a moment’s peace in weeks.”

Laurent was silent for a long time, Damen still holding his wrist, feeling his pulse thrumming beneath Damen’s fingertips, rabbit-fast. “Fine,” he conceded, eventually. 

Damen smiled, and released Laurent’s wrist, feeling a sharp pang of loss when he drew back. They were silent for a long time, looking at each other, until Damen spoke. “Why did you spare Kastor?” He had never asked. At first he had not cared, and then it had never seemed worth it to bring up the painful memories. “A year ago. Why did you do it?”

“Aside from the fact that, as recent events demonstrated, Themoedes would not have taken kindly to the execution of his son?”

“Aside from that,” Damen said, feeling an inexplicable rush of fondness. “And you probably could’ve gotten away with executing Kastor, back then.” His father would’ve grieved, and raged, but it would not have been an insult grave enough to go to war for.

Laurent was silent for a long time. “I wish I had a prettier truth to offer you,” he said at last. “But it wasn’t out of fairness, or mercy, or some other just impulse. I could see Kastor was plotting something, and I thought it would weaken Ios more if I left you both alive, and that my brother might benefit from it.”

“I don’t know what else I was expecting. You’ve always been ruthlessly practical.” 

Laurent flinched. 

“No, I-”, Damen said reaching out to touch the sharp jut of Laurent’s wrist again, briefly. “I am glad you spared him. It doesn’t matter why you did it, or that it still led us here. And I am glad I have come to know you.”

“I am glad I have come to know you, too,” Laurent said. His voice was quiet, serious. Without artifice. 

There was an interval of silence, pregnant with unspoken things, and then Damen cleared his throat. “My father’s coming to Marlas,” he said, “Nikandros told me he’ll be here before the week is out.”

Laurent made a soft noise. “I know. Auguste is coming, as well.”

“What a mess,” Damen said, sighing.

“That’s one way of putting it, yes,” Laurent said, and Damen could hear the smile in his voice. 

“I’ll tell my father you saved my life,” Damen promised, “and hopefully we’ll be able to put this past us.”

Laurent did not reply, but he shifted his wrist in Damen’s grip, until Damen let him go, and then he laced their fingers together.

***

Laurent was laying in bed, drowsing, when his brother arrived in Marlas. The sound of the trumpets startled him, and he sat up, his shoulder twinging as he stood and hurried over to the window. The starburst of Arles gleamed in the morning sunlight.

His heart leapt, with sudden joy, before he cast his gaze beyond Auguste’s swaying blue banners, to where the roaring lion of Ios was traveling down the road. Theomedes would arrive a few hours after the delegation of Arles, if that. 

Ruthlessly, he suppressed the spike of apprehension he felt at the sight of the Southern banners, racing instead down the stairs, his jacket askew, to meet his brother in the courtyard. Auguste was dismounting his horse, sunlight glinting in his golden curls. 

“Laurent!” he exclaimed, opening his arms, and Laurent ran to him. It was perfect, for a moment, to curl up against his brother’s shoulder, Auguste’s hand cradling the back of his head like he was eight years old again. 

“Oh, Laurent,” Auguste repeated, drawing back, “we’ve heard the most outlandish things. Is it true you were injured?”

Laurent nodded, raising his hand to his aching shoulder. “It wasn’t that bad,” he lied, as convincingly as he could. 

Auguste tilted his brows, his hand reaching out to cover Laurent’s fingers. “It wasn’t what I heard.” 

“You know how tales always get exaggerated in the telling” Laurent insisted. “I’ll live, anyway,” he added, somewhat undermining the effect of his own words. 

Auguste only sighed, reaching out to clasp him in his arms once more. “I was so worried,” he murmured, his face pressed against the side of Laurent’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Laurent said. “I didn’t mean for you to worry.” 

“I know,” Auguste said, gently. “Laurent, I have to ask. What happened with Kastor? I’ve heard a dozen tellings of his death since I set out from Arles, none of them consistent.”

“Please,” Laurent said, “please, believe me. I was not planned. He was going to kill Damen, and I couldn’t let him-“

“Oh,” Auguste said, putting enough space between them, so that he could grip Laurent’s shoulders and look at him. His gaze was intent. “You love him. I had wondered.” 

“Is it so obvious?” Laurent asked, not without a touch of displeasure. 

“No,” Auguste said, half-laughing. “But I know you very well. Does he make you happy?” 

Happy, Laurent thought, was too simple a word for what Damen made him. “He’s a fool,” he said, and heard the fond urgency in his own voice, “a noble, blind fool, soft-hearted and brave and - yes, Auguste, yes, he does make me happy.” 

“Good.” 

“He loves me back.” It was the first time Laurent had said the words out loud. He had expected it to feel, somehow, more momentous than this; his heart did not quicken its pace, his face didn’t heat. It felt as though a warm, comfortable weight had settled at the pit of his stomach. It felt right. 

“He’d better,” Auguste said, and drew Laurent into his arms again. 

“What will we do about Theomedes?” Laurent murmured, into the fabric of his brother’s jacket, as Auguste gently stroked his hair. His eyes were burning. 

“If I told you that I’d handle it,” Auguste whispered, “would you believe me?”

“Not really.” 

Auguste laughed, low and rumbling, so lightly Laurent felt it more than heard it.“I thought so.”

“Auguste of Arles.” 

Laurent startled, ripping himself from Auguste’s embrace. He hated that he’d been found here like this, rumpled and tear-stained, clinging to his brother’s chest like a frightened child. 

“Theomedes,” Auguste said. 

The king of Ios was accompanied only by a handful of mounted guards. He had to have left the bulk of his retinue up the road, when he’d seen Auguste’s banners. 

“Exalted,” Laurent said, tipping his head forward in a belated curtsy. 

“I see that after a year your brother has finally managed to stain his hands with the blood of my sons.” 

“It was not like that,” Laurent said. “I wouldn’t harm a hair on Damen’s head.” 

Theomedes snorted. Laurent could see the traces of Damen’s features in him, now, an echo of what Damen would look like in four decades time. His heart thumped painfully against his chest. 

“That is not what I’ve heard,” the king of Ios said. “I heard that you sent him to slay an invulnerable lion, to steal the apples of the gods. Is that not true?”

“Yes,” Laurent said, “but-“

“Father!”

Damn the Southerners, one and all. “Damen, for fuck’s sake,” Laurent shouted, turning, across the courtyard. “You were half-dead a week ago. What are you doing out of bed?” 

Damen gray-faced and panting, ignored him and continued to make his stubborn way over the cobblestones, for all that he looked as though he were about to collapse. Laurent hurried over to him and grabbed his hands before he could hurt himself, even though it would’ve served him right. 

“Father,” Damen bellowed again, with surprising volume and determination for someone who _had almost died recently._. “Father, Laurent has saved my life.” 

“Damen,” Laurent hissed. Why, why, of all the idiots available in the world, had he picked this one to fall in love with?

“It was Kastor who would’ve harmed me, and our crown,” Damen went on, unheeding of the rapidly amassing crowd of spectators, flocking to the courtyard to watch the foreign royalty wash their dirty laundry in public. “Laurent of Arles deserves the greatest honors, and our thanks. He is the best man I know.”

“Damen,” Laurent repeated, “ _stop making this worse_.”

“I want to marry him.” 

“What?” said Laurent. 

“What?” echoed Theomedes. 

Auguste, the fucker, just smiled beatifically at the unfolding scene. He was lucky Laurent loved him so well, or Marlas would’ve been the site of a royal fratricide after all. 

“Who ever said anything about marriage?” Laurent asked, once he had regained a little of his composure.

“I asked if you’d like it,” Damen said, slightly lowering his voice and glancing around, apparently becoming aware of the situation for the first time, “if I came back to Arles, to challenge you again.” 

“I didn’t think you meant- I doesn’t need to be the official challenge, for me to lie with you. You just need to beat me once.” 

“You don’t want to marry me, then?” Damen asked, the light in his eyes dimming.

“I didn’t say that,” Laurent said - gently, as gently as he could. “I just think it’d be a terrible idea. For you,” he clarified, as Damen’s face crumpled, “it’d be a terrible idea for you. You know how dangerous it is to ask for my hand.” 

“You’re worth the risk,” Damen insisted. 

“ _No,_ ”Laurent said, “ _I’m not_. You’re making a mistake.” 

“I don’t think I am.” Their hands were still intertwined. Damen lowered his eyes and bent his mouth to Laurent’s knuckles, there, in the middle of the courtyard, in full view of the assembled kings and aristocracy. His lips were chapped, slightly rough, but the kiss was soft. His breath came in short, warm pants over Laurent’s skin. 

Laurent looked, beseechingly, at Theomedes, who had dismounted his horse in the commotion and now stood in the courtyard watching them intently, and unreadable expression upon his face. “Surprisingly enough,” he said, “I agree with my son on this.”

Damen looked up, triumphant. “Laurent,” he murmured, “my promise stands. If my suit is unwelcome, say the word and I’ll never breathe of it again. But if it’s welcome, do not deny us the chance to seize happiness.”

His eyes were so earnest. Laurent had never, not even once, dreamed that Damen’s love might be something that was his to keep. 

“I cannot say yes,” he said, and it was harder than it should’ve been. “You’re injured. You’ve just lost your brother. Your attachment to me might fade, with time and distance.”

Damen pressed his lips together, eyes lightning up with stubbornness. 

Laurent held up his hand. “I’m not refusing you. I just want you to give this some thought. Go home,” he pressed, “Heal. Mourn your brother. In three months’ time, if you still want me, come and seek me in Arles.” 

Damen looked at him for a long time, studying his face. “I will be there,” he promised.

***

Damen rode along the wide, cobbled road that led to the royal palace at Arles. It was as much an ornate monstrosity as it had ever been, a mess of gilded turrets and sloping, blue-tiled roofs, but for the first time, Damen approached it eagerly, his heart buoyant at the thought of who he would find inside.

Laurent did not know to expect him - Damen had arranged the visit with Auguste, and he approached the palace alone, having left his retinue behind at the gates of the city. 

He went to one of the side entrances, meant for merchants and traders, where he was met at one of the side entrances by one of the royal guards, a serious man of thirty-odd years, with a neat brown beard, and close-cropped hair, whom Damen, vaguely, remembered from the time he had spent in Arles. He nodded affably to the man, whose name he could not recall. 

The guard executed a stiff, jerky nod that led Damen to believe he had been on the verge of bowing and had caught himself. He led Damen through the entrance, and then down along a series of half-remembered, winding corridors, until they reached a shadowed alcove where Auguste was waiting. 

The king of Vere did not look much different than he had the last time Damen had seen him, but for the fact that there was a lightness about him that hadn’t been there before. “I do hope you realize how it looks,” he said, by way of greeting, smiling slightly as he waved away the guard. 

“Like an assignation?” 

Auguste nodded, laughing. “Especially considering that we are going to my rooms. Or rather, you are. I’ll just deliver you there and slip away.”

“I’m sorry if I am infringing upon your virtuous reputation,” Damen said. 

“It’ll only do me good, or at least so Laurent would say,” Auguste said, as he started to walk the tiled hallways. To avoid attracting notice, they were keeping to servants’ corridors, which Damen privately thought might have worked better if he had stayed alone with the guard rather than accompanying himself with the king. They did not come across anyone, save a flustered girl with an overbrimming laundry basket, who was so concerned with her task that she did not spare them so much as a glance.

“I owe you thanks,” Auguste said eventually. 

Damen cut him a look, surprised.

“Laurent has been happy these past few months, when he has not been happy in a very long time.” Here Auguste paused, for a moment, twisting the signet ring on his finger. “I don’t know how much he has told you, but I was in part cause of his unhappiness, however unwillingly, and I’ll always be thankful to you for helping bring about its end.” He clasped Damen’s shoulder, in a gesture of easy camaraderie. “That being said,” he added, squeezing slightly, “if you break his heart I’m going to tear you limb from limb and scatter your remains to the corners of the earth, so that you might never find peace.”

“Noted,” Damen said, “and I promise I will never hurt him.” 

Auguste nodded, and released his grip on Damen’s shoulder, and simply resumed walking, at a slightly brisker pace. Eventually, he led them into the main corridors, though they were large and empty enough that Damen suspected that they had already entered the private part of the palace that was reserved to the use of the royal family. 

They stopped in front of a tall set of doors, two members of the royal guard stationed on either side. 

“He believes I’ve invited him to my chambers to discuss my wedding,” Auguste said. And, in the tones of one making a confession he added: “He is very adamant that I marry soon. And he doesn’t seem to notice the irony of the situation.”

“He has mentioned something to that effect to me,” Damen said, vaguely. He both wanted and didn’t want to cross the threshold; he had spent the last few months in a haze of anticipation, but now that the moment was upon him, he found the state of not knowing almost preferable to the certainty he knew awaited behind the doors. 

“Well,” Auguste said, amused, “he is here to talk about a wedding. Just not mine,” and then he took Damen by the arm and more or less frog-marched him inside. Which only worked because Damen was momentarily too stunned to make up his mind on whether or not he wanted to resist. 

The room they stepped into was more simply furnished than Damen might have expected from the solar of a Veretian king. The walls were a pale lilac frescoed with a pattern of golden starbursts, the floor polished wood in a warm hue, rather than tiles like Damen had seen elsewhere in the palace, and it contained little furniture; just two divans draped in purple silk and an armchair across it, slightly higher, presumably so that the king could loom down at his guests, and a low table between them. 

Laurent had been sitting in one of the divans, but he rose when they entered, turning to the sound of their footsteps. 

“Good luck,” Auguste said, extracting himself from Damen and going back they way they’d come, but Damen barely heard him. He was looking only at Laurent, watching him as he registered Damen’s presence, eyes greedily absorbing the way his eyes widened and his lips parted, blood suffusing his face, high on his cheeks. 

The sweet, unguarded surprise lasted only a moment; Laurent mastered himself, spine straightening and eyes going razor-sharp. “You are late,” he said. “I expected you a month ago. I have changed my mind about marrying you.” 

Damen barely had time to register the words - and the leaden disappointed they carried with them, that Laurent let some of his composure break, and revealed the teasing glint in his gaze, the way he kept trying to bite down a smile and never quite succeeding. 

“I am very sorry to hear that,” Damen said, stepping further into the room and closing the door behind him. “It is a shame, really,” he went on, carefully navigating the low table and the armchair, so that there were no obstacles left between him and Laurent.

“Really?” Laurent echoed, his voice low and languid. “And why is that?”

“If we are not to be married, I will no longer be able to do this.” Damen said, taking Laurent’s face between his hands, and bending his mouth to kiss him.

The kiss was firm, almost forceful, Laurent stiff with surprise against him, even though everything since he had walked through the door had been leading to this. 

Damen sighed, shifting his grip so that he was cradling the back of Laurent’s head, fingers buried into fine gilt hair, and he tipped his chin back further, easing the angle, so that he could kiss him deeper, more thoroughly. Slowly, inch by inch, Laurent melted into him, until his weight rested fully against Damen’s chest, until they were doing nothing more than lazily moving their lips together. 

When Damen pulled away with a final caress to the side of Laurent’s face, Laurent chased after him, letting out a tiny sigh. 

“That is a very good point,” he admitted, eventually, still sounding a touch dazed. “It should be considered further,” he added, tangling his fingers in the fabric at Damen’s shoulder and pulling his mouth down again.

They lost several minutes to kissing, in the gentle, almost shy way of lovers who are new to each other. Damen was drunk on the simple pleasure of discovery, of learning the way Laurent fit against him as they embraced, the softness of his skin, the brush of his hair, the way he would not make any noise but would sometimes let out a long, shuddering sigh. 

Eventually, Laurent pulled away. He was flushed pink, his mouth bruised crimson, his hair mussed. “I would like to remind you,” he said, with his customary impeccable calm, “that the last time you asked me to marry you, I said no.”

“Technically, you didn’t answer,” Damen said, running his fingers over the cloth at Laurent’s hips, where the jacket met the waist of his trousers, seeking skin. “Does that means that now you’ll marry me? Since you’ve changed your mind.”

“That’s a pointless endeavor, I’m wearing a shirt underneath,” Laurent said, with a touch of fond amusement, looking at Damen’s fingers on his body. “And yes, I’ll marry you.”

“Good,” Damen repeated. He kept his hands on Laurent’s waist, feeling the heat of him through the fabric. 

“You will need to beat my challenge.”

“I know that.”

“I cannot let you win,” Laurent warned, “Or help you in any way.” 

“I know that, also. It will not be a problem.” 

“Are you certain?” Laurent asked, a little smile playing around his lips. “I did beat you quite soundly, the last time, and now you’re older and heavier.”

“Oi!” Damen said, slapping his side, gently, and tightening his grip on him, which made Laurent laugh and squirm pleasantly against Damen’s body. “At most, I am wiser and more dignified.”

Laurent laughed again, “Yes,” he said, “you are very wise and dignified.” And, before Damen could think of a retort, he pressed his lips to the point of Damen’s chin, and they were distracted for some time.

“I have a plan,” Damen promised, when they parted. “It is very underhanded. You’ll like it.”

“Is it a good plan?” Laurent asked, dubiously. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Damen said, torn between being touched by Laurent’s concern and taking insult. “Nikandros even gave me his blessing for it.” 

“That is not as comforting as you seem to think,” Laurent murmured, and Damen, deeming the conversation over, he turned his attention to the soft spot just above Laurent’s collar, where his neck melted into the underside of his chin. He kissed it once, and then pressed his teeth into that tender place.

Laurent barely reacted to the bite, but he shuddered when Damen slowly ran his tongue over the spot to soothe it, and rewarded him with a gasp when he pressed a tender, close-mouthed kiss to the hurt and let his mouth linger.

“Trying to sample the wares before the wedding night?” Laurent asked, managing, somehow, to sound caustic. 

“Be gentle with me,” Damen chided, laying a trail of small, soft kisses along the underside of Laurent’s jaw. “I meet my destiny tomorrow.”

“I’ll do my best,” Laurent gasped, laughing, and went easily when Damen backed him towards the divan and pushed him down on it. 

He found himself fonder of the softness of Veretian mattresses, when it meant that the cushion gave easily under their weight, and they found themselves pushed together, chest to chest and mouth to mouth. They were pressed too close together for Damen to do anything about Laurent’s unreasonably complicated lacings, so he just relished the kissing, the way Laurent’s mouth felt, crushed under his, the soft little gasps that sometimes escaped him, the frantic rise and fall of his chest, his growing hardness against Damen’s hip.

Eventually, Damen drew off and balanced himself on his knees over Laurent. He just watched him, for a long moment, his red face and mussed hair, and then he reached for the laces at Laurent’s throat. His fingers promptly got tangled in them, and Laurent smiled, and reached up to undo them himself.

He wore a shirt underneath; fine, sheer cotton that clung to him and hid little. When Damen pressed his hand against it, the fabric was soft, and smooth as river water, and warm from Laurent’s skin. 

Keeping his palm flat against Laurent’s stomach, Damen pushed him, firmly, down among the cushions, and bent his mouth to Laurent’s chest. 

He started with kisses, just below the delicate arches of his collarbones and moving lower, feeling the hard ridges of his pectorals, the flatness of his muscles, the gentle swells of his hardening nipples. 

He opened his mouth, and applied his tongue; long, measured strokes as Laurent twitched, silently, beneath him, until the cotton was dripping and stuck fast to Laurent’s skin. He bit down, not quite gently, before he moved to the other side of his chest.

When he was done, he pushed himself off, so that he could look. 

Laurent looked wrecked; he was flushed crimson from his face to his throat to the top of his chest, his blue eyes glazed, his mouth bruised and panting. The sight of his chest was obscene; the sheer fabric gone transparent, his swollen nipples a lurid red. 

Gods, the things Damen wanted to do to him.

He caressed Laurent’s nipple though the wet fabric, a gentle touch of his thumb, and Laurent gasped, the sound startlingly loud in the silence of the room. 

It was enough to return Damen to his senses. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, and slipped off of Laurent to sit on the opposite side of the divan.

“It’s fine,” Laurent said. His voice was rough. “I’ve thought about it. As long as neither of us climaxes, it’s not technically breaking my vows.” 

“Um,” Damen said, flickering an involuntary glance down at his own crotch. “We’d better stop, then,” he admitted, with some difficulty. 

“Really?” Laurent asked, following his gaze, a small, satisfied, _utterly infuriating_ smile hovering at the edges of his mouth. “I was expecting better from a man of your reputation,” he said. He had pulled himself in a sitting position and the way the fabric shifted and clung to his chest was - interesting. 

“I usually last longer,” Damen replied, far too late and perhaps a touch defensively. 

“I’m sure you do,” Laurent said soothingly. 

“I once had a man in my rooms for seven consecutive hours,” Damen insisted. “I have great stamina.”

“Not to cast aspersions on that,” Laurent said, in the tone of voice of a man about to do exactly that, “but you’ve just admitted to being on the verge of climax simply from licking my nipples.”

“You seem to have that effect on me,” Damen admitted. 

Laurent arched his brows. “I can’t decide whether that’s oddly touching or a dreadful sign for my impending nuptials.” 

“I guess you’ll just have to find out,” Damen replied, and saw his own tentative joy reflected in Laurent’s expression.

***

Laurent woke early, the morning of the race. So early it could hardly be called morning at all, his room still murky and gray with pre-dawn light, and he lay on his back for a long time, staring unseeing at the canopy of his bed.

Once he rose, he dismissed his servants and dressed himself, in simple clothing that would not hinder him as he ran. Slowly, methodically, a strange sense of inevitability rising in his chest, he combed his hair until it was soft and smooth, a fair, silver cloud around his sharp, weary features. He braided it, afterwards, into a thick, shining plait down the center of his back. 

When he arrived outside the city gates, the crowds were already assembled at the tracks, though Damen was still nowhere to be found. He had to stand at the starting mark alone, thinking of nothing but the tracks in front and the ground below, until it seemed he could feel each grain of sand where it shifted against the soles of his feet. 

He was not looking for Damen, but still he knew when he arrived. The sounds of the crowd quieted suddenly, then swelled again as the dozens of people amassed to witness the race began shifting so that they could clear a passage for Damen to step through. Laurent, through all this, did not turn, though his carefully affected carefulness was ruined by tension he could not keep from the set of his shoulders. He heard the sounds of Damen settling into position at his side. 

He’d expected it to take longer - for Damen to stop at the edges of the racing tracks to strip, as was the custom in the south. When he darted a side-eyed look at him, though, Damen was still wearing his chiton, a pouch hanging at his waist, the golden lion pin of his status shining at his shoulder. 

Laurent turned his head, just enough that he could look Damen in the eyes, in the precious in-between moments in which the crowds murmured and the race was not yet started. “It’s not too late to call it all off,” he whispered in the space between them, quiet enough that none but Damen would hear. 

“It _is_ too late,” Damen replied, gentle. “It has been too late ever since we stood in a rain-wrecked wood and slew a manticore.” 

“I would not lose you,” Laurent insisted, honest with fear. 

“You will not,” Damen promised, and then Auguste called for the start of the race, and there was no room for thought any longer in Laurent’s head, none at all. 

There was nothing, for a long, long moment, but the endless stretch of the sand at his feet, the blurred shapes of trees and people at his sides, the perfect silence in his head, the pump of blood in his veins and air in his lungs. Something winked in the sun, rolling down the tracks, just off to the side. 

Laurent startled, turning to follow it with his gaze, so that he nearly tripped over his own feet. It was an apple, round and golden and unyielding, and it did not merely catch and shimmer in the sunlight - it blazed, now that he was looking at it directly, as magnificent as the sun. 

He veered, sharply, to the side, following the apple to the far side of the tracks. It was warm, pleasantly so, when Laurent picked it up, though it was gold all the way through. He had to hold it, awkwardly, in his hand as he ran, but still he did not drop it, for he could not bear to part with it. 

The apples of the Hesperides were irresistible to mortals. 

Damen had overtaken him, while he’d gone after the apple, so that Laurent was focusing on his back as he ran, on the way the chiton stuck to his skin, made transparent by his sweat. The pouch at his waist jerked and twisted with his movements - Laurent had not seen it, before, but he was willing to bet a great deal that he had just become much, much lighter. They had barely passed the halfway point of the race, when Laurent overtook him again. 

Almost immediately, there was the flash of a golden apple as it rolled down the sand. In the time it took Laurent to go after it and return to the race, Damen only had about a quarter of the tracks to cover, before he won. 

Laurent sped up, his heart hammering in his chest with delirious hope. He had to give the race his best attempt, for Damen’s victory needed to be a true one for Laurent’s oaths to be fulfilled, but, for the first time, he felt almost sure he was about to lose. 

It was almost a physical blow, when he overtook Damen again a scant few moments later. The finishing mark loomed ahead, Auguste leaning white-faced against the post there, and the courtiers and commoners beyond him, staring, tense and half-incredulous, at the man who had already overtaken their prince twice. 

Damen threw the third apple with enough force that it ricocheted off one of the poles that marked the width of the tracks, and Laurent had to double back to go after it. He ran awkwardly, now, with the three apples braced against his chest so that they wouldn’t slip out of his grip, while Damen’s movements were smooth, no longer weighted down now that the pouch at his waist hung empty. 

Still, Laurent was the fastest mortal who had ever lived. With each step, he bridged the distance between them, until they were almost abreast, and the finishing mark was only a scant few paces from them. 

Damen cleared it half a blink ahead, Laurent stumbling past it at his heels. 

He fell to his knees, panting, his curls plastered to his head with sweat, while the crowds stared, too stunned to talk, and Laurent stood in front of him, just past the finishing line, his shining bundle gathered to his breast. 

His chest burned, as he watched Damen heave in a few loud, shuddering breaths. 

“You cheated,” he said. In the silence, the words rung out like a bell. 

Damen raised his head, his dark eyes shining with something that was a strange mixture of fondness and mirth. “I think you’ll find,” he replied, voice pitched to carry, “that nothing in the rules you stated forbade what I did today. To win, I was to finish the race ahead of you, and I was not to do anything to you that would make you unable to run.” 

“That’s a technicality,” Laurent countered, stepping closer. A wellspring of joy was blooming in his chest, bright and painful, and he had to tamp down on the absurd urge to laugh. 

Damen stood, slowly, and walked forwards to meet him. “I simply thought,” he said, mildly, reaching out with trembling hands to press Laurent’s waist and bring him close, “that if I was to win myself a northern husband, I would need to borrow some northern treachery.” 

Laurent did laugh, then, loud and delighted, head thrown back so that he could feel the sun against his face. And he continued to laugh, until Damen put his hand to his cheek, and drew him in close, and kissed him there, barefooted on the sands, separated only by the gleaming gold pressed between their chests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gorgeous artwork featured in this chapter is by Sitical, you can also find it on Tumblr [here](http://sitical.tumblr.com/post/180280554456/the-final-piece-for-thestoriesthatweweave)!
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr, [here](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com)
> 
> The chapter title is inspired by the [same](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/atalanta-2/) Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward from which I took the title for the first chapter (the original line being "if he be not the man born for winning, why then let him die!"). Check out the poem, it's really good!
> 
> I hope you liked the story so far! If you did, let me know in the comments!


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